Totally Confused

[#1]

After some thought I took the plunge on Thursday and ordered the Plusnet home phone/broadband package.  Went through the process with the sales person and paid my money.  I then received 3 emails the last of which asked me to contact my current service provider for a MAC code.
So I rang Talk Talk for this and they advised me that I didn't need one because I was LLU ("unbundled") - I was then put through to another person who said the only way for me to migrate to another provider would be to go back to BT, they would cancel my account and then i would need to pay over £100 to re-connected with BT.  There was a chance that i could keep my number.
At this point I started getting stressed because this is the complete opposite to what the sales lady @ plusnet said.  So I called plus net who said that Talk Talk were wrong and it was a legal requirement for them to issue me with a MAC code within 5 days.  The plusnet person also said it was normal for Talk Talk to try and scare people from leaving.
So back onto Talk Talk and they said exactly the same thing........so this time I checked out the OFCOM website as advised by Talk Talk and it seems they are correct - I shouldnt need a MAC code!  so back I went to Plusnet and this time the advisor went off for ages to see if there was "a tag on the line", eventually he came back and said they could move me over without a MAC code but I would lose voice service for a day and broadband service would take another 7-10 days after that. 
This was again different to what the plusnet sales person had advised me (same day change for BB and 10 days after that for the phone, however no loss of service in either case).  I now have the customer options team to call to get a refund and cancel this process, however they only work monday to friday 9-6 so that will leave me stewing over the weekend.
This forum is for rants, so that is my rant over.  Thankyou

[#2]

I haven't moved my phone to PlusNet - it's still with BT.
At least if one company screws up, I won't lose all my comms 
There seem to be quite a few threads recently complaining about the quality of customer support.
In the past (and currently), I've always been very impressed by the quality of PlusNet's support, generally.
Did you know that PN have a South African (previously Indian) company which appears to be coming "on-stream"?
It might be interesting to ask on your next phone call (it sounds like  that will be at least one) whether you are speaking
to Sheffield or Durban.
You should preferably be speaking to the UK.
Have they explained the 18 month contract, the Market 1,2,3 exhange thing? 

[#3]

Hi 8Ball,
It sounds like you've got an unbundled line, which means the line is connected to TalkTalk at the exchange.
TalkTalk were correct when they said you'd have to pay to return to BT (this cost's £125 IIRC).
However, we can do a number port for you (returning your line to the BT network via BT Openreach/Wholesale) for £40.96. We can also arrange for simultaneous broadband provision. So you'd be out of service for a few hours at most.