Virgin cut off my landline & lost my number!

[Fai62]

Long rant alert** hoping this has happened to someone else and they have been able to resolve it!

We had multiple calls at the start of the year saying we had to switch to fibre broadband. A lot of the time i was away so missed their calls, i finally managed to answer one of their calls and it was arranged for 27th March for the switch to be done remotely. 
I hadn't noticed until few days after the switch our homephone had stopped working and the number had been disconnected. I tried calling Virgin but never got through to a real person and it always randomly cut off. I finally managed to get in touch via their whatsapp message option and was told our landline had indeed been cut off by mistake and we had to start a new contract to regain access to our landline!!!

But apparently since i left it so late to contact them i had to pay £35 for a new hub/router which otherwise would have been free if sorted when they originally tried to get hold of me. Fine i thought, if it meant sorting out my landline with the number I've had for 15+ years ill just pay the £35 and be done with it. 

The new hub arrived on Friday and i set it all up following the instructions, plugging the home phone line into the new hub instead of the wall socket like before. I tried calling the homephone and it still said “number not recognised” but the wifi worked so thought nothing of it. Maybe it just needed some time to transfer over. 

Then today i rang to explain my landline was STILL not working and the lovely gent on the end of the phone did his best to sort out my problem. However after staying on hold for a few minutes whilst he “transferred the number over” i was told he couldn’t find the number on the system anymore!!! He said the numbers either been assigned to another new customer or its been wiped from the system altogether and there was nothing he could do! I think its the latter as i still get “the number has not been recognised” when i call it. He told me the only thing i could do is to keep try calling in hope the number becomes free again, the number I’ve had for the last 15+ years, with everything registered to it. What a SHAMBLES! 

Forced me to switch and had to pay an extra £35 all to lose my number and cause copious amounts of stress. Cheers Virgin! Hoping someone has experienced similar and has resolved it!

[Ayisha_B]

Hi @Fai62 👋

Welcome to our Community Forums and thanks for your post. 

I am so sorry for the poor experience. 

I'd love to take a closer look into this so will pop you a PM now to confirm some details and we can take it from there. 

Thank you 

[MelLJ · Accepted solution]

Fai62, sadly the same thing has happened to me.  I had been away and hadn't managed to respond to the communications about the fibre network switch over straight away.  I did eventually manage to get through to someone at VM to arrange the transfer and I had a new hub sent to me.  Then I discovered that my phone had been disconnected and had to take out a new contract to get my landline restored.  I then had to wait for an adapter to use with my new hub so when I got this I plugged my phone in and made a test call - my number came back as invalid.  I rang to get some help and after answering some questions I was told that my phone number had changed.  I was advised that the system was still migrating and I should try again in a few days (i.e. the beginning of May) to see if my old number works (I'm not convinced but let's see).  If no luck I will be ringing again as I have been a VM customer for a number of years and want my old number back.  Very disappointing as at no point did I ask for my phone to be disconnected or for my number to be changed. 

I sincerely hope not too many people have been affected by this, as there will be those who have not been able to respond for various genuine reasons and it should not result in phone lines being cut off.  Not to mention the extra fees involved to restore contracts (on top of ever increasing phone bills) and the time and effort it takes to go around telling contacts that your phone number has changed.

Hope Virgin Media can resolve things ...

[MelLJ]

Replying to topic:

Sadly the same thing has happened to me.  I had been away and hadn't managed to respond to the communications about the fibre network switch over straight away.  I did eventually manage to get through to someone at VM to arrange the transfer and I had a new hub sent to me.  Then I discovered that my phone had been disconnected and had to take out a new contract to get my landline restored.  I then had to wait for an adapter to use with my new hub so when I got this I plugged my phone in and made a test call - my number came back as invalid.  I rang to get some help and after answering some questions I was told that my phone number had changed.  I was advised that the system was still migrating and I should try again in a few days (i.e. the beginning of May) to see if my old number works (I'm not convinced but let's see).  If no luck I will be ringing again as I have been a VM customer for a number of years and want my old number back.  Very disappointing as at no point did I ask for my phone to be disconnected or for my number to be changed. 

I sincerely hope not too many people have been affected by this, as there will be those who have not been able to respond for various genuine reasons and it should not result in phone lines being cut off.  Not to mention the extra fees involved to restore contracts (on top of ever increasing phone bills) and the time and effort it takes to go around telling contacts that your phone number has changed.

Anyone at Virgin Media can you help to resolve please?  

[Fai62]

Hi Ayisha_B , is there any update on this? I lost communication from you yesterday evening. Thanks

[Fai62]

Thanks for replying MelLJ, sadly it must of happened to a few people i reckon. Like yourself i have had the number for many years and I can’t even begin to think about the stress of changing EVERYTHING over to a new number. I know I’ve missed some important calls already so lets hope it can be sorted!

[MelLJ]

What concerns me is how many people might have been affected and had their phone line disconnected if they've had a genuine valid reason why they haven't been able to respond to VM, such as illness for example. 

[Fai62]

@Ayisha_B any update on this? I lost contact from you after supplying the requested security details etc

[MelLJ]

UPDATE - My landline now seems to be back up and running (on the correct number) - thank you to @Kain_W for looking into things.

[Arissa_H]

Hi MelLJ.

Thank you for coming back to us 😊.

Glad to see it is working!

If you ever need us, just know we are one post away.

You can also give us a call on 👉🏼 0345 454 1111, if you ever have issues with your landline or Broadband.

Thank you.