The account holder has recently died, but the household wants to keep using VM. We've been told that we have to close down the old account, open a new one, and that there's no way of porting the telephone number from the old account to the new one. This goes against Ofcom regulations. What can we do?
Port the telephone number to a VOIP provider and then do not let it become part of any ISP's bundles to avoid rapidly getting back to the current position of feeling held hostage by VM.
Forum TeamHi shjm
Welcome to our forums and thank you for your first post. Sorry to hear of your bereavement. We truly want to do our best to help. Just to confirm, have you opened a new account with our team already? Also, was the advice given by Client62 useful? Is there anything you may need help with?
Thanks,
I phoned to change the name of the account holder and payment details and during that call, the person i spoke to said they had to close the account as they had been informed that the holder was deceased. They said they would get a salesperson to call me about starting up the new account, but that they wouldn't be able to port the number due to the old account holder having died. The salesman confirmed this, so I signed up with Sky who have at least promised to try to keep the number.
Forum TeamThank you for that information. So Sky have advised they are attempting to take the number over?
^Martin
Your phone number should be under your control, not held hostage by a broadband provider. Get it moved to a VOIP provider now.
The old problem surfaces again.
1) Number porting is to allow an existing customer to change providers & keep their existing number. There is no provision, via OFCOM or otherwise that states you can move numbers around family members using this facility. Any other changes are at the discretion of the provider IF they were the owner of the original number in the first place (ie. It was originally issued by VM from their number pool & not ported in from another providers allocation pool).
2) If VM has marked the line as “pending disconnection”, any porting attempt will fail.
Unbelievable, truly, unbelievable.
Every single person who has responded in this thread has spectacularly managed to miss the point! OK 'Client62' did make a good point in suggesting migration to VoIP; 'nodrogd', come on, you are a VIP you are supposed to know this stuff and advise properly!!!
Rights let's go back to the original issue, the account holder has died; what is the one and only instance where VM allows another person to take over an existing account in its entirely; keeping everyone the same; including the phone number?
Oh that'll be when the account holder has died and a family member is prepared to take it on, no?
What was the OP informed by VM's sorry excuse for a CS department; "We've been told that we have to close down the old account, open a new one, and that there's no way of porting the telephone number from the old account to the new one"
Lies, absolutely lies; well at least the first part, but not one of you, including two members of the forum team have bothered to point this out and to correct it.
Guys - get a grip!
