SKY have lost my 80 years olds sisters old phone number when she transferred to them from Talk Talk

davea160461

This week my sister who is nearly 80 years old changed her phone and Broadband from Talk Talk to SKY.

She told them that she wanted to keep her old telephone number. 

She has had this number over 50 years and it is the one that all her old friends, colleagues’ people she has met on holiday etc use to ring her. 

She does not know all of their numbers so she can’t contact them. 

The telephone is her main method of communication especially since Covid and she spends hours on the phone, and she won’t use a mobile. 

Last week the engineer came to install the dish and set up and when he left he told her that her old number would automatically come into operation before midnight. 

This did not happen, and she has now been given a new number which means absolutely nothing to anyone. 

Yesterday I telephoned SKY on her behalf. I then spent around 40 minutes talking to an operator who could only repeat the same script repeatedly that it was too late now and that her number could no longer be transferred. 

She said that the number was still with Talk Talk and that they may have reallocated to someone else now. 

After speaking to SKY I rang Talk Talk who were very helpful. 

They confirmed the old number had been transferred to SKY as they had been requested to do so and that the number now belonged to them. 

My sister is absolutely devastated and is stressed out about it. 

She now feels that she may not speak to old friends ever again who often ring her and that she does not have their phone details to contact them. 

She now thinks that if they ring her on her old number that as the number is cut off they will that they will think that she has died. 

Please can anyone give any advice on how to get this resolved?

JJ_Egan

The phone number is not something that she owns .

Go to Sky complaints  and escalate before the number is totally lost .

iniltous

If the number has been allocated to your sister for 30 years , that pre dates Sky or Talk Talk as phone ( network ) providers , and chances are the number is actually part of a BT or Virgin number range , as they both have networks that were around 30 years ago, .....depending on how big an error Sky and or TT have made , the number may now be back with the original provider, if a ported number is ‘lost’ generally it eventually returns to the original number range holder .

pmduk

The number would return to Ofcom who own and issue all UK phone numbers.

Chino

pmduk said:

The number would return to Ofcom who own and issue all UK phone numbers.

Whilst Ofcom's General Conditions of Entitlement makes clear that communications providers obtain their allocation of telephone numbers from Ofcom and that, if they do not use a range of numbers, Ofcom may withdraw that allocation, there is nothing saying that a communications provider return an individual number to Ofcom merely because a subscriber no longer needs that number.

wertyjmnb

As just one part of a six month saga Sky lost then (just today) reconnected my old number for me, so it is possible.

The problem with Sky is that once you fight your way past the robots that try to stop you speaking to a human being you end up speaking to a call centre operator.   They are invariably polite and willing to help but have very limited training and options.  You may get lucky and speak to someone who has dealt with similar problems before or you may get someone who is faced with a screen of text which they do not fully understand and therefore can only read out to you. 

Sky has many specialist departments.  The trick is to ask the call centre operator if there is someone else who might be able to help you.  The call centre operators have the ability to transfer you to the specialist departments.  It usually takes some time and when you get through the person has no knowledge of the problem and also needs to go through the security checks.  The first operator may not have picked the appropriate department so you may have to go through this process several times.

Sky do not provide the connection to homes. That is provided by the BT subsidiary Openreach. It is Openreach who actually manage the physical wires and which phone number is allocated to them. What you need to do is get Sky to place an order on Openreach who will do the work.

My experience of all Sky and Openreach employees has been very positive. They do want to help but their administrative systems don’t make it easy for them. It is a difficult balance between making it clear that you are very dissatisfied with Sky and considering cancelling the contract and not antagonising the human being who is trying to help.

If it does come to it there is an ISP called Andrews and Arnold who make a point of their ability to manage Openreach who might be willing to help. I was with them for a few years and was entirely satisfied with their service only leaving because of their pricing.

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