If Your Mobile Is Stolen Do You Lose Your Number?

Reeves

Other half is asking as she believes a friend is pulling a fast one.

The friend had a new mobile a month ago and gave my wife her new number. Same day while out on a day trip together she said "oh no the phone has gone ... I must have left it at the services".

She hasn't mentioned finding it since but yesterday my wife received 2 txt messages from her and the number that came up was the same as the number in the "lost" phone.

Can the networks transfer a number to a new phone after it is out of the possesion of the owner?

p.s. my wife has a suspicious mind lol.

Viper_7

Yes easy. In fact many prefer this as it means they don't use up a new number.

esuhl

Yup - the network should block the SIM as soon as it's reported lost/stolen. The number can then be transferred to a new SIM.

I don't know what the networks' policies are regarding this as I've never been in this situation, but it's technically possible, and I would think it quite likely that they'd allow customers to keep their original number.

jonathon

yep when my wife lost her phone new sim same number

HugoSP

A similar thing happened to me many years ago.

We were actually burgled and fortunately lost very little, less than the excess on the home insurance policy.

I contacted the store who managed to get the network to issue a replacement sim with the same number.

I then felt a right plonker a few days later when I found said phone in my car!

Reeves

Thanks everyone for your quick replies :T
... common sense should have told us this was possible but you never no. Will have great pleasure tomorrow in telling her to trust people a little more !!! :beer:

doelani

yes when my DD lost heres she had old sim canceleld and new sim with same number within 10 minutes after visiting o2 store, the wonders of technolgy lol