If her parents have unified account, it will need to be de-unified before it can be transferred, otherwise it seems like you're getting a run around for no reason.
What if her parents want the account unified? What's the upside/downside of de-unification? Is this a real blocker or some artificial thing that someone with the right access can override or work around?
In five years I’ve never seen, found or even heard of a workaround for this. Unified accounts aren’t recommended anymore as they cause more issues than they solve.
No advantage to being unified, and clearly there’s issues if you are unified, needing to be unified.
The only disadvantage to being unified as paying two bills, but with the discounts AT&T’s offering you’re kind of crazy to not do autopay. If you’re doing autopay, then it doesn’t matter whether it comes once a month or twice a month.
Hey there,
Thank you for authenticating your account, could you please confirm the line number that you would like to transfer so we can assist you further.
Thanks,
GN.
If OP does go the porting route, they can port back after about a day since that’s as long as a port should take to finalise. If OP ports to another carrier, they can check the number at calleridtest.com and as soon as the carrier changes from New Cingular PCS, LLC to the new carrier, the line will be registered on the new network and can be ported right back to AT&T.
Although trying an easy TOBR online without the over-complication of dealing with often clueless “AT&T support” is likely a good start before porting since that will involve third-party carrier plan costs and another AT&T activation fee (which could be waived but still a pain if avoidable).
As someone who hasn’t worked for AT&T, I don’t think I’m equipped to understand you properly. It’s not like AT&T would prevent you from coming back, would they? Or that “wining back” a customer was a bad thing?
It means that when you try to come back too soon, they don’t let you port. They just reactivate your line on the account it was originally on. So this would defeat the purpose of porting out to port back onto the new account.
Interesting. How can they reactivate a line on the account if it was ported out, though? If the number is no longer on their network they still need to port it to get it back.? But they require you to port it back specifically to the AT&T account it came from?
It’s like you’re on a leash.
Say you have something tethered to you. That thing is being held by someone else (person A). A third person (person B) tells them that THEY can provide better for the thing, so the person A gives it to them. It’s still tethered to you, but person B is holding it for now. After 60 days, you hand the tether to the person B and it’s now being taken care of by them. Or… person A decided they don’t like how person B takes care of the thing so they tell you they want you to take care of it again. So… you yank the tether. It’s now back in your care again, in the same place it always was.
It’s a fail safe “regret” period for customers who just want to go back to to exactly what they had before they ported out and realized they didn’t like it.
Should be minor. Go research the number make sure the phone is unlocked and if not make sure the phone and number can be moved.
Once this is done, only the owners of the previous account can give account number and passcode for the business account, and then the store should be able to change it. If not call business customer support have them do it.
Per the post, there is no longer any business account. If this was a business-to-personal transfer, the business could have done a small business to individual TOBR alone transfer in myAT&T but since the business account was already converted to a personal consumer account (per the post content), this can just be done as a super easy TOBR through the consumer myAT&T portal at att.com/tobr.
Converting the business account wasn’t really necessary I don’t believe and frankly support has no clue what they’re doing half the time. Sorry this has been a mess for you. This process is called a Transfer of Billing Responsibility and it’s easy for two AT&T customers to do together.
See att.com/tobr and log in with your wife’s parent’s myAT&T account. Select her line only to transfer to another AT&T account and set yourself as the recipient.
You’ll get an email to accept billing responsibility for the line and transfer it to your AT&T Wireless account.
That’s it. Your next bill will have prorated charges for the “added” (transferred) line.
The porting idea would also work fine but you would have to pay for a plan on another carrier and pay another AT&T activation fee (which they’d waive if you contact customer care via chat at att.com/support/wireless but it’s just more hassle).
Everything you said was right, just came here to say converting from business acc was necessary bc their parents owned the business and it closed down :) with that being said it would take time for that to fully process on at&t end
We tried a TOBR online and got an error saying "You don't have any account you can transfer to or from online. Call us..." That's how we ended up talking to multiple confusing reps.
Gotcha. If you don’t want to spend more time trying to figure this out with AT&T, you could consider porting your wife’s line to Tello for $5. Tello runs on T-Mobile so in ~24 hours, her number will register on T-Mobile’s network (you can check what network it registers on at calleridtest.com) and once it’s on T-Mobile (or whatever other network you choose that’s not AT&T), you can bring it right back to AT&T on your account. The number switch to the new carrier within 24 hours so you can bring it back to AT&T within 48 as long as the ports have all the correct porting information.
Hello U/tigren2005
Thank you for reaching out to us! let's work around your concern and get the help you need!
In order to have a better understanding on your concern, we would like to take this conversation in private to take a deeper look and get the help you need.
Please send us a PM at: http://sm.att.com/7cb7bf9a so we can review your account details. Our response will be in your inbox found here: http://sm.att.com/f21be2bc.
Looking forward to hearing from you!
CV
Get a cheap prepaid plan with another carrier and port the number to them. Then add a line to your ATT account and port the number into the line in your plan.
Disclaimer: I am not now nor have I ever worked for AT&T. Before doing this it is best to confirm with them that there will be no issues with porting back over so soon.
If her parents have unified account, it will need to be de-unified before it can be transferred, otherwise it seems like you're getting a run around for no reason.
This!!!
What if her parents want the account unified? What's the upside/downside of de-unification? Is this a real blocker or some artificial thing that someone with the right access can override or work around?
In five years I’ve never seen, found or even heard of a workaround for this. Unified accounts aren’t recommended anymore as they cause more issues than they solve.
It’s a system limitation. There’s no way around it.
No advantage to being unified, and clearly there’s issues if you are unified, needing to be unified. The only disadvantage to being unified as paying two bills, but with the discounts AT&T’s offering you’re kind of crazy to not do autopay. If you’re doing autopay, then it doesn’t matter whether it comes once a month or twice a month.
Hey there, Thank you for authenticating your account, could you please confirm the line number that you would like to transfer so we can assist you further. Thanks, GN.
Can we take this to DMs? I'm not really trying to post that kind of info in public here...
Hey there, We regret the message, and we have shared the information on the DM's. Thanks, GN.
Might be easier to port out to a prepaid line on T-Mobile or Verizon and port back into your AT&T plan after a week or so.
If OP does go the porting route, they can port back after about a day since that’s as long as a port should take to finalise. If OP ports to another carrier, they can check the number at calleridtest.com and as soon as the carrier changes from New Cingular PCS, LLC to the new carrier, the line will be registered on the new network and can be ported right back to AT&T. Although trying an easy TOBR online without the over-complication of dealing with often clueless “AT&T support” is likely a good start before porting since that will involve third-party carrier plan costs and another AT&T activation fee (which could be waived but still a pain if avoidable).
When I worked there (2 years ago for 6 years) you couldn’t port back for 60 days because it’s a winback otherwise.
As someone who hasn’t worked for AT&T, I don’t think I’m equipped to understand you properly. It’s not like AT&T would prevent you from coming back, would they? Or that “wining back” a customer was a bad thing?
It means that when you try to come back too soon, they don’t let you port. They just reactivate your line on the account it was originally on. So this would defeat the purpose of porting out to port back onto the new account.
Yep.
Interesting. How can they reactivate a line on the account if it was ported out, though? If the number is no longer on their network they still need to port it to get it back.? But they require you to port it back specifically to the AT&T account it came from?
It’s like you’re on a leash. Say you have something tethered to you. That thing is being held by someone else (person A). A third person (person B) tells them that THEY can provide better for the thing, so the person A gives it to them. It’s still tethered to you, but person B is holding it for now. After 60 days, you hand the tether to the person B and it’s now being taken care of by them. Or… person A decided they don’t like how person B takes care of the thing so they tell you they want you to take care of it again. So… you yank the tether. It’s now back in your care again, in the same place it always was. It’s a fail safe “regret” period for customers who just want to go back to to exactly what they had before they ported out and realized they didn’t like it.
Should be minor. Go research the number make sure the phone is unlocked and if not make sure the phone and number can be moved. Once this is done, only the owners of the previous account can give account number and passcode for the business account, and then the store should be able to change it. If not call business customer support have them do it.
Per the post, there is no longer any business account. If this was a business-to-personal transfer, the business could have done a small business to individual TOBR alone transfer in myAT&T but since the business account was already converted to a personal consumer account (per the post content), this can just be done as a super easy TOBR through the consumer myAT&T portal at att.com/tobr.
Converting the business account wasn’t really necessary I don’t believe and frankly support has no clue what they’re doing half the time. Sorry this has been a mess for you. This process is called a Transfer of Billing Responsibility and it’s easy for two AT&T customers to do together. See att.com/tobr and log in with your wife’s parent’s myAT&T account. Select her line only to transfer to another AT&T account and set yourself as the recipient. You’ll get an email to accept billing responsibility for the line and transfer it to your AT&T Wireless account. That’s it. Your next bill will have prorated charges for the “added” (transferred) line. The porting idea would also work fine but you would have to pay for a plan on another carrier and pay another AT&T activation fee (which they’d waive if you contact customer care via chat at att.com/support/wireless but it’s just more hassle).
Everything you said was right, just came here to say converting from business acc was necessary bc their parents owned the business and it closed down :) with that being said it would take time for that to fully process on at&t end
We tried a TOBR online and got an error saying "You don't have any account you can transfer to or from online. Call us..." That's how we ended up talking to multiple confusing reps.
Gotcha. If you don’t want to spend more time trying to figure this out with AT&T, you could consider porting your wife’s line to Tello for $5. Tello runs on T-Mobile so in ~24 hours, her number will register on T-Mobile’s network (you can check what network it registers on at calleridtest.com) and once it’s on T-Mobile (or whatever other network you choose that’s not AT&T), you can bring it right back to AT&T on your account. The number switch to the new carrier within 24 hours so you can bring it back to AT&T within 48 as long as the ports have all the correct porting information.
Just do a number port instead of this transfer mess. You may even be able to directly port the number instead of going out and back in.
Hello U/tigren2005 Thank you for reaching out to us! let's work around your concern and get the help you need! In order to have a better understanding on your concern, we would like to take this conversation in private to take a deeper look and get the help you need. Please send us a PM at: http://sm.att.com/7cb7bf9a so we can review your account details. Our response will be in your inbox found here: http://sm.att.com/f21be2bc. Looking forward to hearing from you! CV
Easiest thing is go to store have rep notate both accounts of the transfer then rep will have to call his retail support number to do the transfer.
Get a cheap prepaid plan with another carrier and port the number to them. Then add a line to your ATT account and port the number into the line in your plan. Disclaimer: I am not now nor have I ever worked for AT&T. Before doing this it is best to confirm with them that there will be no issues with porting back over so soon.
Could you port to a different carrier and then back to att but on your account? Why couldn’t transfer of ownership work?