Changing landline phone provider but keeping same number

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12 Apr 2011
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Wolverhampton
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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
 
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It is not just virgin /sky
It is a national thing, albeit badly handled by those companies

Unless you specify that you want to retain a number, it is taken as granted that you get a new one.
Not quite the same, but my girlfriend lost her number by first giving advance notice of moving to BT, then extending the date. Some kind of cock up happened and for the two remaining months in her flat she had to have a new number - that of course, nobody knew
 
In 6 months time it will be recycled and given to another customer also. Obviously there is not an endless supply of numbers so all terminated numbers eventually get recycled.
 
I think the problem lies in your comment, of being under the impression, but they aren't mind readers, and most don't care. But as you were asking to rejoin them, the sales person should have suspected that they would want to retain their number. It's only if you were moving into a new house in a new area, that a new number would be needed.

You need to tell them you want the number ported across to the new provider, and then they raise the PAC code, and the numbers transfered automatically. Ask to speak to a supervisor, and explain the as you parents are elderly, it's important that they keep their number, and see if somone can help you retrieve it.
 
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I think the problem lies in your comment, of being under the impression, but they aren't mind readers, and most don't care. But as you were asking to rejoin them, the sales person should have suspected that they would want to retain their number. It's only if you were moving into a new house in a new area, that a new number would be needed.

You need to tell them you want the number ported across to the new provider, and then they raise the PAC code, and the numbers transfered automatically. Ask to speak to a supervisor, and explain the as you parents are elderly, it's important that they keep their number, and see if somone can help you retrieve it.

PAC codes only apply to mobile numbers, not land lines.

If you cancel a contract for a landline the number will go back to the original provider which in this case is virgin media. It will sit in a pool for a number of months then it will be recycled and given to a new customer.
 
They'll go back if you cancel the contract, but should be tranfered via a request to transfer the service to a new provider. Sorry about the PAC code bit, I though it was the same system; I haven't transferred a phone in 20 years.
 
The poster has stated the contract was terminated.

Virgin Media have no obligation now to give that back to Sky since it has been returned as a cancelled contract and the number can be recycled.

You would have more luck of getting it back by joining Virgin Media and when it comes to being given a number if you ask they will let you choose from a list of available and hope your old number is available.

Numbers do not hang around for long due to them being in short supply. As soon as a contract is cancelled there are procedures in process to get that number ready to be reused.

While I would like to be optimistic and hope you get it back, because the contract was cancelled I see the chance being very slim.
 
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.
 
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