Help to recover a lost number!

[Smoth]

Hello. This is a complicated request so please bear with me on a long explanation!  My wife got her first mobile in the mid 90s on what was then the Cellnet network. After some number format changes the code became an 07712 one. This has been her number ever since until last week. She ported this number from network to network over the years and was most recently on the BT Mobile virtual network (not EE). She then decided to move her number and our daughter’s onto the ID mobile virtual network hosted on Three but decided to do the port sequentially. This is where it went very wrong. Her 07712 number successfully ported over but then a few days later when moving our daughter’s, ID Mobile made a mistake and ported it over the top of my wife’s recently ported in number (the 07712 one).  ID mobile have apologised and said there is nothing they can do. My wife is super upset as the number she has had for nearly 30 years appears to have been lost. BT Mobile say there is nothing they can do as the number successfully left their network. Three say there is nothing they can do and ID mobile say they can’t recover it. So my first question is will the number be returned to what is now O2 as the successor network to Cellnet that originally had the number? And if so, is there anyone on here who can help me set up a new O2 account with that number? Would love to get this back to her for her birthday!

[madasaf1sh]

@Smoth 

You are going to struggle with this one, as although o2 own the number range there is really not a lot that can be done from o2 point of view... and aslo you will need to port it out of ID Mobile, and then back into them...

I would persevere with ID Mobile to be honest, and get them to fix the issue, there are ways to do it, or  why not switch your daughters sim with your wifes?? and give your daughter a new number, surely ID Mobile van do this....

[Smoth]

Thanks but swapping the SIM won’t help as my daughter’s number has over written my wife’s so that would just mean my wife getting my daughter’s number.  You say port the number out of ID mobile - but I thought that deactivated numbers were returned to their first issuing network hence my question of whether O2 might be able to find the number in their pool once returned and set me up a new contract?

[madasaf1sh]

@Smoth 

Ahh sorry I misread that bit.. 

It will be but not for up to 6 months (it is not instant).and I would imagine at the moment it will still be within ID Mobile / Three's platform, and will be sat somewhere as pending...  hence the port out of ID Mobile... 

Also o2 will not know that ID have messed up, and they will still be routing calls to ID Mobile for that number...

As i said you need to preserve with ID Mobile, and try and find someone there who is in the tech team..