Good Morning Folks
I hope you are all well. I hope some of you kind folks out there would be able to help with the dilemma that I am facing:
A few years ago, we (our family) were with Virgin Media who provided our TV, Telephone and Broadband services. However, we changed over to Sky in 2014 (because they were offering a better deal), and was allowed to keep the same landline phone number. About a fortnight ago, we decided to terminate our contract with Sky (because of their ever increasing prices). However, a few days later, my elderly parents got upset stating that they miss some of the programmes that Sky show and urged me to re-join Sky. Therefore earlier this week, I rang them up and said I wanted to re-join. Obviously, they were delighted to hear that, and they completed all the paperwork over the phone. They had found details of my records on their system and said they will activate my account in the next 24/48 hours. Naturally, I was under the impression that I would also be given the same phone number. However, when the paperwork arrived through the post, to our great disappointment we were allocated a completely different phone number. No mention of a different phone number was made to me when I had previously called to re-join them.
I immediately rang them up asking the reason why I was given a different phone number (which we have had for the previous 20 years) , and why I hadn’t been told about this. The reason they gave was that when I terminated the contract with them, the number was returned to Virgin Media, and that they assumed I was aware of this !! I was quite upset and demanded that I be given the same number again. The sales advisor at Sky simply said sorry and that was not possible. He said the only possibility of getting the same number again, is if I join Virgin Media for their phone services, and that may give me a slight chance of getting my previous number back. I then rang Virgin Media and spoke to the sales advisor who said yes that is possible and started to complete the due process of enabling me to become their customer and getting the phone number back. Now this may sound silly to you, but getting the original number back is very important to the rest of my family, especially my elderly parents, because we have given that out to all our friends and relatives.
I rang up Virgin Media again a few days ago, and was told that the sales advisor who had advised me that we could get the phone number back was on holiday for the next few days and in fact she has given me the wrong information. This new sales advisor said we cannot get the phone number back and we would be allocated a new number if we were to re-join.
Obviously this is a great disappointment to my family, and my elderly parents who think it is the end of their world, in terms of communicating with friends and relatives.
Has someone else been in this situation before? How did you resolve it? Would it be at all possible to get the original landline telephone number back?
Any advice greatly appreciated.
Thank You
Hello geek84,
I can well understand that losing the landline number you have had for 20 years would cause a great deal of work as informing people of your new number and also the possible confusion for elderly people regarding the change.
I have always believed when you relinquish your number there is little chance and no guarantee you can get it back. I believe it goes into the "pool" of numbers available and is reallocated. If a short space of time has lapsed since losing it there may be a slight possibility of getting it back before it is reallocated if you go back to the provider you were with. I understand you have tried this though.
I know it doesn't apply to you but for those numbers which are changed because the householder has received nuisance calls and requested a change of number, I wonder if they are taken out of use for a set period before being reallocated. I have known of this as I knew the recipient of nuisance calls who changed their number only to find it allocated to a friend of mine months later.
I believe there is very little you can do about it.
Good Morning folks
I hope you're all well. A few days ago, I contacted Virgin Media and managed to get my old phone number back !!
I am joining them for telephone and broadband service.
They are coming next Wednesday to sort this out and also connect me to their broadband.
Many thanks for all your help and advice.
Morning geek84,
I'm pleased the number was still available and that you were able to get it back.