Changing landline phone provider but keeping same number
geek84
Posts: 1,104 Forumite
in Phones & TV
[FONT="]Good Morning Folks[/FONT]
[FONT="]I hope you are all well. I hope some of you kind folks out there would be able to help with the dilemma that I am facing:[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]A few years ago, we (our family) were with Virgin Media who provided our TV, Telephone and Broadband services. However, we changed over to Sky in 2014 (because they were offering a better deal), and was allowed to keep the same landline phone number. About a fortnight ago, we decided to terminate our contract with Sky (because of their ever increasing prices). However, a few days later, my elderly parents got upset stating that they miss some of the programmes that Sky show and urged me to re-join Sky. Therefore earlier this week, I rang them up and said I wanted to re-join. Obviously, they were delighted to hear that, and they completed all the paperwork over the phone. They had found details of my records on their system and said they will activate my account in the next 24/48 hours. Naturally, I was under the impression that I would also be given the same phone number. However, when the paperwork arrived through the post, to our great disappointment we were allocated a completely different phone number. No mention of a different phone number was made to me when I had previously called to re-join them.[/FONT]
[FONT="]I immediately rang them up asking the reason why I was given a different phone number (which we have had for the previous 20 years) , and why I hadn’t been told about this. The reason they gave was that when I terminated the contract with them, the number was returned to Virgin Media, and that they assumed I was aware of this !! I was quite upset and demanded that I be given the same number again. The sales advisor at Sky simply said sorry and that was not possible. He said the only possibility of getting the same number again, is if I join Virgin Media for their phone services, and that may give me a slight chance of getting my previous number back. I then rang Virgin Media and spoke to the sales advisor who said yes that is possible and started to complete the due process of enabling me to become their customer and getting the phone number back. Now this may sound silly to you, but getting the original number back is very important to the rest of my family, especially my elderly parents, because we have given that out to all our friends and relatives. [/FONT]
[FONT="]I rang up Virgin Media again a few days ago, and was told that the sales advisor who had advised me that we could get the phone number back was on holiday for the next few days and in fact she has given me the wrong information. This new sales advisor said we cannot get the phone number back and we would be allocated a new number if we were to re-join.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]Obviously this is a great disappointment to my family, and my elderly parents who think it is the end of their world, in terms of communicating with friends and relatives.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]Has someone else been in this situation before? How did you resolve it? Would it be at all possible to get the original landline telephone number back?[/FONT]
[FONT="]
[/FONT]
[FONT="]Any advice greatly appreciated.[/FONT]
[FONT="]
[/FONT]
[FONT="]Thank You.
[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]I hope you are all well. I hope some of you kind folks out there would be able to help with the dilemma that I am facing:[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]A few years ago, we (our family) were with Virgin Media who provided our TV, Telephone and Broadband services. However, we changed over to Sky in 2014 (because they were offering a better deal), and was allowed to keep the same landline phone number. About a fortnight ago, we decided to terminate our contract with Sky (because of their ever increasing prices). However, a few days later, my elderly parents got upset stating that they miss some of the programmes that Sky show and urged me to re-join Sky. Therefore earlier this week, I rang them up and said I wanted to re-join. Obviously, they were delighted to hear that, and they completed all the paperwork over the phone. They had found details of my records on their system and said they will activate my account in the next 24/48 hours. Naturally, I was under the impression that I would also be given the same phone number. However, when the paperwork arrived through the post, to our great disappointment we were allocated a completely different phone number. No mention of a different phone number was made to me when I had previously called to re-join them.[/FONT]
[FONT="]I immediately rang them up asking the reason why I was given a different phone number (which we have had for the previous 20 years) , and why I hadn’t been told about this. The reason they gave was that when I terminated the contract with them, the number was returned to Virgin Media, and that they assumed I was aware of this !! I was quite upset and demanded that I be given the same number again. The sales advisor at Sky simply said sorry and that was not possible. He said the only possibility of getting the same number again, is if I join Virgin Media for their phone services, and that may give me a slight chance of getting my previous number back. I then rang Virgin Media and spoke to the sales advisor who said yes that is possible and started to complete the due process of enabling me to become their customer and getting the phone number back. Now this may sound silly to you, but getting the original number back is very important to the rest of my family, especially my elderly parents, because we have given that out to all our friends and relatives. [/FONT]
[FONT="]I rang up Virgin Media again a few days ago, and was told that the sales advisor who had advised me that we could get the phone number back was on holiday for the next few days and in fact she has given me the wrong information. This new sales advisor said we cannot get the phone number back and we would be allocated a new number if we were to re-join.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]Obviously this is a great disappointment to my family, and my elderly parents who think it is the end of their world, in terms of communicating with friends and relatives.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]Has someone else been in this situation before? How did you resolve it? Would it be at all possible to get the original landline telephone number back?[/FONT]
[FONT="]
[/FONT]
[FONT="]Any advice greatly appreciated.[/FONT]
[FONT="]
[/FONT]
[FONT="]Thank You.
[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
0
Comments
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I dont understand - when you terminated your contract with Sky for TV, phone and broadband, did you stop having a telephone service at that point or did you move to another provider ? If you moved to another provider, then to who and did they transfer the number?0
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If the phone number was originally from the cable company's range of numbers , as opposed to a 'BT' number that was ported to the cable company then onto Sky, by ceasing the Sky phone service the number would revert to the number range holder (which you suggest is VM) unless you had arranged for another phone company to import the number .
I'm guessing that at the moment you have Sky TV back, Sky phone and broadband but with an unwanted phone number , and a potential order with VM for stand a lone phone service but an indication that the VM number you get will not be the number you want but any old VM number and as already pointed out, when you cancelled Sky you didn't say who, if anyone,you transferred your phone,BB and TV service to, is there is a third company involved, VM, Sky, and another ?
Working on the assumption that the number was and is a number from VM's number range, it's possible that when a ported number is returned to the number range holder, that it's held in 'quarantine' for a period of time before it's made available to be allocated to a VM customer, so it could be that you have to get a 'temporary' VM number for a while and then get VM to renumber your line from the temp number to the one you want..
VM may or may not be able to circumvent this quarantine period, but obviously it's upto them, or it could be that they don't offer renumbering and if the number isn't available at the start of the ordering process, it's just tough, it's the number they offer of nothing at all, you would need to check this with VM
If the number was a 'BT' number that was moved to 'cable' more than 20 years ago, before moving to Sky, then when Sky gave the number back , it didn't go back to VM but 'BT'
Finally , if it was just the missing TV programmes that was the concern, why didn't you just re-order the Sky TV part and leave the phone and BB with whoever you moved to from Sky, if the phone number was important presumably you arranged with that company to 'import' the number0 -
I'm surprised you are so upset about loosing your number.
When you left Sky, how did you expect your relatives to keep in touch with you if you didn't have a land line ?
I left virgin media and joined back 3 months later.
I asked for my same number back, and as it hadn't been given to anyone else I got it back no problems.
(mind you, yours is slightly different as you ported it to sky years ago)
I would point out that VM calls and line rental is the most expensive around. (although if you pay LR 12months in advance its ok)
To get broadband from someone else other than VM, will mean you will have to pay another lot of line rental! So it makes sense to get the broadband from virgin.
So I would be cancelling the sky contract if possible. (I hope you are within the 14 days cooling off? I think applies?)
I expect VM can supply the TV channels that are missed too0 -
I'm confused by this. Your original plan was to terminate your service with Sky which would leave you with no phone service at all. So presumably at this point keeping your phone number wasn't important. So why did it later become important to keep this phone number?0
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Good Morning folks
I hope you're all well. A few days ago, I contacted Virgin Media and managed to get my old phone number back !!
I am joining them for telephone and broadband service.
They are coming next Wednesday to sort this out and also connect me to their broadband.
Many thanks for all your help and advice.0
This discussion has been closed.
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