Sky loses my landline number! can I get back?

digitalsafari

Hi all,

Short version.
If you cancel Sky to move to BT and then decide to stay with Sky and cancel the BT order, then Sky can lose your landline number!

Long version.
Just over a month ago (around 25th May) I was looking to change over
to fibre (FTCC) broadband as a Sky customer and was told as an
existing customer I could only have the standard 40/2 speed option and
not the pro 80/20.
So I decided to change to BT Infinity 2 76/20 and cancel Sky. So
cancelled Sky with retentions and ordered with BT.

Then I found out that existing Sky customers will be able upgrade from
ADSL to Fibre Pro 80/20 in a month or so, I decided to stay
with Sky on ADSL until then.

I called Sky retentions (1st June) and un-cancelled my cancellation of Sky
services for phone and broadband. Sky TV services remained to
cancelled. Retentions confirmed that only my Sky TV services will stop
around 1st July and phone and broadband will continue as normal. At
the same time I cancelled my order with BT and received an email
confirmation from BT that the order was cancelled. Sky confirm via email that I am staying with them.

Monday 25th June
During the afternoon on the 25th I discover that I have dial tone but
can't make outgoing calls.
I speak to customer service who escalate the issue to Sky network
services. I explain the sequence of events to network services and
they find the problem on the system and say it's fixable but requires
a manual email to be sent to rectify the problem and my phone should
be working again within 24 hours and I will be called back on Tuesday
with a progress report. ADSL is working fine.

Tuesday 26th June
Phone not working all day, ADSL fine. Sky Network services call as
promised say all sorted and phone should be back on around midnight.

Wednesday 27th June
Phone line now dead, no dial tone. ADSL now dead as well.
Email Sky customer support.

Call Sky customer support and told that I am no longer a Sky customer.
Problem is escalated and I am told the following... that my landline number is "lost" and returned to BT and I need to reorder Sky on a new 12 month contract and will get a new landline number, which will take 5 to 14 days to connect.

Lady (name withheld here) in Sky customer services told me that in the past when mistakes have been made that Sky can get numbers back from BT but now can't. She said that Sky should be able to offer something to make up the inconvenience, as it was not my mistake but couldn't commit.
Promises to call the following day.

I have had the same landline number for over 10years so imagine how bad losing the number is.

As she could not commit to anything I decided not to immediately reorder with Sky and talk to BT.

Called BT, who say that they can easily get my number back if I order
with them but can't discuss getting my number back with Sky.
It will take up to two weeks to be connected with BT.

The lady from Sky CS calls later that day and says she's working on it and will call on Thursday.
Decide to wait for call back on Thursday before making decision.

Thursday 28th June
No phone or ADSL.
Lady from CS does not call back.

Receive the following email from Sky Customer support:

Dear Mr X

Customer Account Number: XXXXXXXXXX
Thank you for your email.
I apologise for the inconvenience caused to you. I have checked your
account and see that your Sky Talk and broadband accounts are
cancelled as on 28/06/2012. I kindly request you to re-order the Sky
Talk and Broadband services.
I hope this information has helped with your enquiry. If you require
any further assistance, you can respond to my email.
Kind regards
Prabhakar
Sky Help Centre
http://www.sky.com

Friday 29th June
Call Sky customer services get through to Indian call centre, told not
a Sky customer, after much persuading get transferred, line cuts off
during transfer. Can't face calling again and going round the "your
not a Sky customer" routine so give up.

As an interim I call Virgin Media and they can connect me the
following day (Saturday 30th) and I can cancel within 28days.

Decide to order Virgin Media 100/10 and Phone while I try to get my number back.

Have emailed Sky Customer complaints, Jeremy Darroch and the Exec office over the weekend but so far no response.

So is going to BT the only way to get my landine number back?

Thanks in advance.

digitalsafari

:mad:

Dear Mr x
Customer Account Number: xxxxxx
Thank you for your email. I am sorry for the inconvenience caused to you with regard to your Talk and Broadband services.

Having checked your account I see that your Broadband and Talk services were cancelled on 28/06/2012.

You can place a fresh order for Talk services. However, you will not be able to get the original telephone number which you were using earlier.

I hope this information has helped with your enquiry. If you require any further assistance, you can respond to my email.

Kind regards Ravindra
Sky Help Centre http://www.sky.com

digitalsafari

Letter dated 28th June saying service transferring on 25th June and to respond before 25th if this is incorrect.... delivered on 4th July!



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digitalsafari

Just spoken to Ofcom and went over the details.

It's being treated as a slamming case and Ofcom are getting details from Openreach on who ceased the line with Sky. Then I can make a formal complaint against who ceased the line.

In addition I have lodged a complaint against Sky as they did not provide adequate notice of the cease request as per industry obligations (see letter in previous post).

So far Virgin is being okay.

Buzby

This is going to fail. It is certainly not 'slamming' - number porting is creaky at the best of times, but attempting to cancel an active transfer is just begging for the whole system to drop your number and leave you without.

Because you changed your mind, certain requirements can be met, but others (like porting) are on auto-pilot and I know of many situations where a number has been lost and cannot be satisfactrily recovered for use - especially if Sky was not the original owner of the number.

It won;t be the first time OFCOM has come up with an incorrect assumption, but the moral is if you don;t plan to follow through, don't initiate the process.

digitalsafari

I queried "slamming" in this case with Ofcom as I put it down to being a mistake at the BT end and they said that there is a category for cancelled orders where a cease is sent that shouldn't have been.

If anything I blame Sky for not catching it and the above letter is a joke.

Agreed, if you start the process best not to change your mind.

Buzby

If the number is really important, I've heard the BT is often able to get Openreach to release it back to them, whereas there is no mechanism for a third party to request specific numbers, so you might want to reconsider this as a way back to normality, then move once the minimum term is up!