My ex-employer won't release my mobile number - do I have rights?

heinov

Dear All,
I just resigned as Commercial Director from a small digital publishing firm - and I did so not on the best of terms...

They couldn't afford to pay me anymore...

I probably made a mistake 16 months ago when I transferred my then private mobile number to the company's Vodafone business account. I had this number for the better part of 10 years.

It came as no surprise when I found out this morning that the SIM card had been deactivated.

To make a long story short:

Do I have a right to "MY" mobile number and can therefore demand for it to be transferred?

Many thanks
HV

DUTR

probably not, if you were not recieving the bills for the account

MorrisonsEmployee

Have you tried calling Vodafone to explain the situation? They might be able to help.

NFH

Interesting question. I would check with Ofcom if I were in your shoes. There must be rules about this. If there aren't any specific rules for such a scenario, then it seems likely that a judge would rule in your favour if it went to court, given that you'd had the number for 10 years.

Guys_Dad

I had a similar situstion when I controlled the mobiles for my company.

One guy wanted to take his number with him, but the contract was still in force. I was not prepared to allow him to be in a position to land the company with £000's in mobile bills and the only solution was if the network was prepared to transfer the account to him. They weren't so the answer was no.

In your case, it looks like the company may have cancelled the account for your mobile with the sim card de-activated. In that case, they have no control of the number any longer and you need to contact the network.

However, they may have cancelled your sim but allocated the number to another member of staff. Try ringing the number and see what result you get. If it is still current, then they may be willing to reach a deal with you or even the network.

Base line is you handed your number over to the company 16 months ago and it is, therefore, their property till they cancel the contract.

Rusty!

If the account has been deactivated, then the number is already lost, unfortunately.

Yolina

I guess it also depends how the company mobiles were set up. When I was working for a (big) company, I transfered my number to our corporate plan with O2 but we were responsible for our own bills which were in our individual names and then reclaiming X amount via expenses. When I left, all I did was call the O2 people who were dealing with the corporate account and they transferred my number to a personal contract.

If the bills were invoiced to and paid directly by the company, then I'm not sure where you'd stand. The issue is now with the deactivated sim and the number may already be lost - call your ex-employer and VF to find out if anything can be done.

Vodafone

Hi heinov

It’s disappointing to see that your number has been disconnected.

As previous posters on thread have correctly advised (thanks to GuysDad and Yolina), there are varying factors that will depend on whether you would have access to the number or not, such as who owns the account that the number is attributed to, and whether it is just the SIM card or the number itself that has been disconnected.

We’ll certainly be happy to shed some more light on this for you once we have further details of the account the number belongs to. If you e-mail us via our Contact Us page, using WRT135 as the subject, and a link to your MSE post, and we can advise further from there.

Many Thanks

Simon
Web Relations Team
Vodafone UK

marcobrum

u were relying on the goodwill of the company for a pac code to release no. they own the contract and are are contract holders . not yourself unfortunalty

they dont have to do any thing for u , sorry

if the no is disconnected its gone

spaceboy

You dont have a leg to stand on, you basically gave them your number when you transferred it.

heinov

Thanks everybody for your advice.

The situation is now as follows:

My ex-employer has not disconnected the SIM, just asked Vodafone to bar it.

I spoke to enterprisedisconnect and team03 at Vodafone who informed me that all they need is an email from the new account administrator (I was the "old" one) for the company to allow the transfer of my number.

However, my worry is that Vodafone won't allow that since the biz account is already 2 months in arrears and a normal transfer would usually have Vodafone add the residual value of my 24-months contract to that biz account.

In my view, my ex-employer will be declared insolvent within 3-4 weeks so I'm trying to speak to Vodafone to find out what will happen to my number in case of insolvency.

BTW...most of your replies are correct in that one does relinquish one's right to the mobile number if transferred to a biz account.

Many thanks again.

Heino