Lost Landline Number (we had this close to 40 years) - :(

[HS1]

Hi Team

Hope you had a nice xmas break.

Apologies but feeling really sad and if anyone can help would be super appreciated. Following recent transition from Sky, over to Virgin Media (our new service provider), the landline port went wrong somewhere. We have had our family landline phone number for close to 40years and it is well known to our network. Sky are not helping and simply say the account has been closed down and that they are unable to retrieve it on their end. VM say number was not active at time of port. The team did not action the port request timely or correctly. We were not provided information on port process from neither providers. VM keep put me hold when i call for hours,n and then advise to wait 10 days for action but each time i follow up, another service rep starts the process over again and asks to wait another 10 days with no resolution. I don't know how or whom to escalate this too. I can't seem to get through to any management at VM beyond the customer rep call handlers. We want our old number back and are worried its lost or potentially re-allocated. From other forums read, my understanding is this number is likely back with BT. What are our options please? Can we reserve or have this re-allocated back please...

Will be grateful for any assistance or help to resolve this matter.

Thanks

Hema

[licquorice · Accepted solution]

Unfortunately as you are not a BT customer, there is nothing that BT can do to assist. The problem lies with your current provider, Virgin, you need to pursue them further to retrieve the number.

[garybs29]

To clarify a bit further if the number is back with BT you'd have to potentially take out BT services & request a renumber once live, that could potentially be the only way but it's not guaranteed either if that's the case

[iniltous]

As stated , there is a possibility that , if the address is the same as when the number was originally provided to you by BT , that by joining BT , as the number probably has been returned to the BT number ‘pool’ , it could be re-allocated to a ‘new’ customer , that new customer could be you ,and there are plenty of examples of this being done,  but that does come with caveats , it’s not guaranteed, you would to a certain extent have to take a leap of faith , and if it were not possible, you would still be a BT customer, with a different phone number and subject to the minimum term etc,   a further potential complication is if the new BT phone service were ‘DV’ , Digital Voice , where the phone  service is via the broadband router , the previous pretty good record of doing what you want may not be any indication of success.

[imjolly]

From a previous similar post there appears to be a 30 day limit in getting number back.

https://community.bt.com/t5/Home-phone-including-Digital/Recover-previous-number/m-p/2268124#M87402