How can I get in contact with tech support to recover an old number temporarily

[Frustrated25]

Need to obtain an old temporary number that my mother had on O2. I rang O2 and spoke to technical support and think I got through to someone in the US. I told him the old temporary number which was from maybe 18 months ago, and he confirmed it was available and that all I needed to do was to buy an O2 pay as you go sim and ask customer service for a migration request. I duly purchased a sim, but O2 customer service are the most soul destroying and useless people it has ever been my misfortune to deal with, and they claim this number is not available from within their pool. They just play pass the parcel with me on to different operators until someone just hands up. How can I get through to technical support to find someone who knows what they are doing again, as the pay as you go team claim no such team exists?

I need the old number to restore years of texts to my mother's whatsapp which somehow thought it was connected to the old temporary number (gone for some 18 months) and wont restore from her own backup from her own Google drive until the old temporary number is back.

[TallTrees]

Hi @Frustrated25 

Welcome to the O2 community 

Sorry to hear your distress 

However it would be extremely unusual to restore a number after 18 months they are recycled more than likely 

Very sorry 

[pgn]

As noted above, it may be that the number has been reassigned. However: You can try one of the Social Media platforms, O2 have a team that monitor X and FB, @Frustrated25 

• X (formerly known as Twitter) – DM
• Messenger – @o2uk

Persist on one or the other until an agent engages with you, and take it from there. 

Number migrations here will help explain the process - Guide: Migration & porting into O2  

Good luck!