Plusnet: Terrible Service after unilaterally changing landline number

sasparillo2

I am a carer for my parent who has had the same phone number since 1977. 

All our documentation etc has always had the same phone number. We are used to changing internet/phone providers, including to and from Plusnet, and the landline number has always been the same. 

This time we changed  from another provider to Plusnet over the phone. We were wondering lately why we never seemed to have any landline phone calls at all. 

Then a relative wrote to tell us that he couldn’t reach us by phone asking if there was something wrong with my parent fearing the worst. 

It was then I discovered, without us expressing the wish, Plusnet had unilaterally changed the phone number. 

This is not only the phone number  for friends and relatives but given to financial institutions and medical staff in case of an emergency. I was told on Oct 10 when a ticket was raised that it would be dealt with promptly in view if the urgency of the situation. After 43 years we don’t even know all the institutions that have our old number and we must  it back. 

At no time was I ever asked on phone when we changed over if we wanted to change the number and I have never had this before either with Plusnet or any other provider - Now, EE, TalkTalk and other I now forget. I have phoned up, put a message with the ticket raised online, contacted Plusnethelp through Twitter but I’ve had no reply except the phone operator telling me it has ‘been escalated’. 

I received nothing through the post saying the number had been changed. Looking back I have found one email just saying ‘your number is’ which I didn’t notice at the time. 

This has totally disrupted the administration of our lives. Frankly words fail me and the employees of Plusnet appear to have no accountability. I was told initially that they would be ‘listening to a recording’ of the phone call when we changed over. 

We are at the end of our tether and the inaction is tantamount to harassment. 

JJ_Egan

Did you not ask for the phone number to be transferred on signing up .

iniltous

Unfortunately it would seem to be a quite a common occurrence, not just with PN , how did you arrange the switch to PN, on-line , filling out the form yourself ( presumably there would be a box to tick asking ‘Do you want to keep your existing number ‘) however , chances are the T&C’s will include ‘ best efforts will be made but sometimes it’s not possible to keep the number’  ...obviously if there is a box that wasn’t ticked , it’s not PN’s fault.
If you arranged the switch by calling PN then it could be a case of you stating you asked for a number port and them saying you didn’t, even if it’s PN’s error getting a number back once a number port has gone wrong is problematic.
Looking forward , it may well be the case that if the number is of such importance that you would switch again, and the number dates from 1977 its going to be a ‘BT’ number , and you would have to join BT to have a chance of getting it back....they would initially provide a random number , and once that’s done , a ‘renumber’ performed to get you back to the wanted number , it’s not instant and there is no guarantee of success.
If you do decide to go down that route it’s advisable to post on the BT Community forum and ask for the board moderators help once the order is raised with BT, not before , as they will just say to come back once the order is raised.

sasparillo2

Hi, Apologies for the late reply. Thanks for your answers. I phoned up to change providers and was never asked about the phone number. The change of number was not put in the snail mail welcome pack, only in one email which I missed. But obviously if I had been asked on the phone when I changed providers if I wanted to keep the number, I would have said ‘yes’. We’ve never had this problem before.

Anyway, the same day after posting here, I decided to email the CEO Philip Jansen 

philip.jansen@bt.com stating I had posted on here. I must say that within a matter of days we had the old number back! Before that it seemed stuck at the reported what had happened stage. So once Plusnet acted, it was very quick, even though it shouldn’t have happened in the first place and I had to contact the CEO’s office to get it moving. But all’s well that ends well!