Lost Landline Number of nearly 40 years :(

[Hs831]

Hi Team

Hope all had a nice xmas break.

If anyone can please please help me - this would be super appreciated.

Recenctly transferred over from Sky to Virgin media for all sky tv, phone and broadband services and sad to say the transition has not been seamless. Anything but 😞

However, that said - the biggest dissappointment is, VM did not port our old landline number over correctly. It has been with our family close to 40 years and my elderly parents are extremely upset. I don't know what to do. Sky said its VM fault for not porting on time. VM customer service are not being helpful when i call. I get passed from customer reps and left on hold for hours at a time. I am unable to escalate to management despite my best efforts. My parents network of family/friends are unable to contact them. I am also in the doghouse 😕 All i want is our old number back but Sky says its lost. VM keep saying it will take 10 days to port but each time i follow up a different rep starts the process over again. With no resolution. It nearly a month now and we still don't have our old number back. Finally today again i called, over an hr old hold. Someone in team indicated likely the port request will fail as the number is no longer active. What can we do? Does BT have the number now? We have lived at the same address for up to 40 years with this telephone number. This is unacceptable.

Can anyone please please help how to retrieve this?

Many thanks

Hema

[Megan_L]

Hi Hema, 

Thanks for using the forums to get this issue with your landline port looked into, I am sorry if this has been causing some frustration and anxiety over the Christmas period. 

When you called Sky to cancel, they should have asked if you were wanting to port out your number and if you said yes, they should have kept your Sky account open and active up until the landline port occurred. We can't port in a number from an already cancelled account unfortunately, if this is the case there may not be anything we can do in this situation I'm afraid.

Could you give me confirmation as to whether the Sky account is now fully cancelled please?

Thanks,

Megan_L

[Hs831]

Thanks Megan for responding back. Yes you are correct - Sky confirmed the account is fully closed down. They said we can move back to them but even they would not able to retrieve our old number back. I can't understand how between the 2 providers they let this happened. Noone not once provided any information or guidance around port process. This has caused alot of anxiety. My uncle sadly passed away a few weeks ago and sadly my mum was unable to receive any of the condolence messages.

Thanks for trying to help.

[Megan_L]

I am truly sorry to hear about your Uncle's passing, Hema. 

I really appreciate you and your family didn't need this situation on top of that terrible news, if there was anything we could do to get the number back I would absolutely jump at the chance. 

However, because Sky didn't keep the account open there is nothing we can do to retrieve it. 

I am also not blind to the fact that our agents may not have been as helpful as possible in this situation, so I am sorry about that. 

I can see you guys already have a complaint open which is with the correct team. They will take a look into the situation and give you a conclusion, however this may be the same information I have given you on here unfortunately 😞

If you need any help in future, please come back to us on the forums and we will be glad to help with any other issues - I am sorry that we can't help with this particular situation though. 

Kindest regards,

Megan_L

[Saorsa]

You have my sympathy - same thing has happened to me - number for almost 40 years appears to have gone  - complaints team looking into what has happened..  Old provider (Sky) telling me one thing , Virgin something else.  

[Hs831]

Thanks Saorsa - its ridiculous. 

Sky are going some way to make ir right but Virgin Media  no reponse to my complaint as yet, despite chasing up. Empty promises and them sending me on goose chase to contact BT Retail and Sky etc. BT retail confirmed nothing to do with them. VM said they would respond back within 48 hrs. Still waiting. Over promise and under deliver is the motto it seems. Ready to cancel now as this is by far the most poorest customer service i have ever received.

[Saorsa]

Hi

I was told to contact BT by Virgin as number had reverted back to them as owners.  I did this and was told by BT that Virgin could contact them to get the number ported.  Been given the runaround.  Resolution offered in initial letter -  "Customer experience ->time to answer call or respond to enquiry - Internal feedback provided.  We hope this works for you" - does not even address the issue being complained about.  Letter also gave a number to call in case I still wanted to talk through options - which I did and am no further forward.  So now a waiting game!

[Tom_W1]

Hi @Saorsa thanks for your reply here.

Really sorry to hear of your frustrations here, I can appreciate this is very difficult.

I'm afraid that if BT own the number, it is firstly they that need to retreive the number before we are able to try and take ownership of this and if BT haven't done so, any attempts from our side will be unsuccessful I'm afraid.

It sounds like from the complaint, it has been unfortunately not possible to retreive the number (possibly due to the reason I have explained above).

If BT can reactivate the number, we then may be able to retrieve this.

Many thanks

[Hs831]

Good luck - though am pretty sure you will wait forever.

I got the so called "letter" - waited for the response window. They never came back. Nothing new there. Their word means nothing. Called them on the number in the letter today to follow up. Had a 1.5 hr call. Mostly on hold. Escalated to management re. complaint non-response with aim for resolution. They tried to fob me off at first. Then offered a £20 one off credit and to terminate me. No attempt to acknowledge the poor customer service and incompetance of team. £20 not even worth the >1 hour of my time on the call itself. Apparently its with "deadlock" team now. Seriously no concept of customer service. Time for ofcom to be invited to the party!

[goslow]

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@Saorsa wrote:

Hi

I was told to contact BT by Virgin as number had reverted back to them as owners.  I did this and was told by BT that Virgin could contact them to get the number ported.  Been given the runaround.  Resolution offered in initial letter -  "Customer experience ->time to answer call or respond to enquiry - Internal feedback provided.  We hope this works for you" - does not even address the issue being complained about.  Letter also gave a number to call in case I still wanted to talk through options - which I did and am no further forward.  So now a waiting game!

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Hs831 and Saorsa

I have read quite a few 'lost number' topics here in the past. Very distressing to have lost a long-held telephone number, especially for older family members who rely on the landline for contact.

Success (or not) often seems to involve making contact with the 'right' person within VM who fully understands the porting processes. Unfortunately, I don't fully understand the porting processes enough to give you detailed advice!

AIUI, if BT 'own' the original number, then it reverts to BT if it gets 'lost'. On the past topics on here I can recall where a lost number has been successfully recovered back to VM, the terminology that has been used is that VM needs to issue the number owner with a 'favour request' to make the number available again for VM to port it to VM. (For BT, replace Sky etc. etc. depending on who actually 'owns' the number)

Between the vast structures of BT/Sky and VM, it might be just luck whether you can reclaim your number but using the right terminology might help and a 'favour request' to reclaim a lost number seems to have worked for some people in past topics.

I hope you can reclaim your lost numbers back again.