My story of transferring a different area code number during activation

Question

When I got my iPhone, I wanted to port my current number (which was in a different area code from my billing address) to the iPhone. I got stuck on the second page of the activation with a "you cannot transfer this number" message.
I called the AT&T corporate store that I purchased the iPhone from and encountered the worst help in a person that basically said that he didn't know anything about that problem, there was no other person here (i.e. supervisor) and he really couldn't help me and doubted that anyone else could. When I said, "So, there isn't anything I can do at all whatsoever? Like there's no phone number at AT&T or Apple that I can call and get any help activating my iPhone?" He finally, like a light bulb went on, said "I suppose you could call the 800-My-iPhone number. The people at that AT&T corporate store must only hire the most brilliant people. I suppose it could have been his first day or for that matter his first call, but still....
I called 800-My-iPhone and the guy there couldn't figure out why it wasn't letting me activate, so he went off and made a little call to AT&T and came back and said that I have two options. 1) I could just activate with a new phone number and transfer my old phone number later (you have 30 days to transfer--the 30 days probably avoids a transfer fee, but that's a guess) or 2) I would have to put in a request to transfer my number and that might take up to six days. I decided to go ahead and just get a new number and deal with the transfer later. Once I got the iPhone activated and got the new phone number, I started the porting process.
When I called the AT&T Porting phone number to start the process, I got the nicest lady that pretty much told me "I wish they had sent you to us first. The reason you couldn't activate with this phone number is because your phone number is in a different area code from your billing address. When the activation process asked for your billing zipcode, you should have entered a zip code from the area where your old phone number's area code was and not your current billing zip code." According to her, that would have allowed the transfer to occur. I wish the 800-My-iPhone people knew this and yes I sent a "One-Way" unacknowledged feedback message into the Apple abyss.
So now the story goes that since I have activated my iPhone in a different area code, the SIM card is locked into that area code. I can still transfer my number, but AT&T has to send me a new SIM card with another temporary number in that area code. Then they have to get the iPhone activated with that SIM card and then they start the whole phone number transfer process.
If I understand this correctly, I will have had two temporary numbers and two SIM cards before the transfer process is over.
It's not over yet, so the story isn't done. I'll see in the next couple of days how the whole "transferring the old phone number" process unfolds.
I can't wait to see how iTunes handles the whole process. That's probably a whole different headache.

Answer 1

Well, you were right about looking for problems in the billing. Even though I had made sure they had closed down the extra account. The problem stems from how they advance bill for next month's service.
When they shutdown the first account (with the temp phone number) they never refunded the advanced payment for the next month, they just kind of forgot about that and didn't have any kind of entry for refunding that pre-paid service.
On the second account (with my current number), I paid for two months of service, but I was paying again on the same month I paid for in the first account. That extra month of service was about $75 of extra charges.
There were all sorts of charges on the first account (like a $175 charge for canceling my account early), which they turned right around and removed. All the extra charges and credits, just confused the issue for not only me, but the customer service agent as well. He kept saying that they had credited me for some $235 of billing and was using that to say that AT&T could not credit me any more.
Finally, I was able to show them that they had not only charged me twice for message service for November, but they also charged me twice for phone service in November too. I think it helped when the agent realized that I only had one phone and one line of service active.
The customer service agent was nice, but with all the other charges and credits, it took a while to get to the bottom of what charge was for what service and where the double billing took place.
Anyway, I did get it straightened out. Thanks for warning me about this. It was that little flag that helped me look for those extra charges. Thanks!
Message was edited by: kae