EE - cancelled my phone number on PAYG

[Kathrynanncooper]

I have had my telephone number on PAYG for over twenty years. 

I last put credit on the phone around March, not long before lockdown. 

I did not leave the house during lockdown for over seven months and did not use the phone during that time as we do not have a signal at home. 

 

When I first ventured out of home after self isolation and needed the phone in an emergency I was unable to use the phone and not even able to contact the operator.  I subsequently found that my credit had been taken and my telephone number cancelled as it had not been used in six months. 

 

Although I did not use the phone much it was mainly in case of emergency and do not really want to get a different number as I have got used to this number and so have relatives who will find it difficult to get used to a new number.   

 

EE are saying that they texted me several times to tell me that the phone was going to be cut off but as we had no signal this was pointless.  

 

Any comments would be appreciated.

[dx100uk]

go over to giffgaff - it seems a waste of money to have a rolling contract for something you rarely use but want in emergencies.

 

like you phone don't work where i am inside and not much better outside of even a reasonably sized town.

 

with giifgaff you simply pop on a  non reoccurring goody bag say the £2/£5 one, and as long as you leave some money credit in the piggy bank (i use £10 about twice a year,) it always works when needed.

 

porting the old number was easy too.

 

 

 

[hightail]

Even giffgaff require you to use the phone every six months to keep the sim live.

[Kathrynanncooper]

EE say that I cannot port the number - it is now lost to me forever.   

After twenty years I don't really want to get used to a new number. 

 

It's frightening to think that if they have given my number to anyone else who will now have access to my financial/personal details. 

 

Trying to change my number is easier said than done and so time consuming and not as straightforward as I thought.

[dx100uk]

all you need is proof of the number on a bill. with GG.

got mine done easy about 4yrs ago now.

they'll sort it.

 

as for every 6mts ... all i do is once in a while log in to my portal and/or when you got an email alert. or even fire it up.

just checked one phone that not been turned on since august 2019, worked perfectly.

[Kathrynanncooper]

I've never had any bill or correspondence and have not been able to access my account online.  Just topup every six months or so, using 150.  I was originally with T Mobile and then they advised me that they were transferring everything to EE but have no documentation.

[dx100uk]

send ee and sar.

 

dx

[Kathrynanncooper]

I've now received a letter from EE advising me how to put in a complaint to the Ombudsman.

[BazzaS]

Complaint will go nowhere, IMHO.

 

it is part of their T’s & C’s (and standard across the industry) that SIMs become inactive if not used. This is because numbers will be recycled : there is a limited (large, but still finite) pool of numbers.

 

If you weren’t able to make or receive a call, expect EE to say you could have made a top-up (e.g online) or have called their helpline to keep the number active.

 

I don’t know that giffgaff will be able to help without a PAC but it has to be worth a try following Dx’s suggestion. I wasn’t aware of any networks allowing a port without a PAC (else people could port numbers not belonging to them just with a bill showing the number!). Mind you, if this was PAYG you may not have a paper bill.......

 

Numbers are recycled but are quarantined /  ‘in limbo’ for (6 months?) after being cut-off. Once it gets recycled it will definitely be gone (as someone else will have it), so don’t delay.

 

it sounds like you needed to be on a different network anyway. If you moved to somewhere EE had no signal at your new home, it might have been wise to port to a network that does have signal there (unless none do).

 

if O2 (giffgaff’s parent network) don’t have signal at your home, but others do, but only gifffaff will let you retrieve your number: you can always port to giffgaff to salvage your number, wait a month or two, then port again to the network that does give you signal at home.