Why can't I take the number with me and assign a new number to the account?

[AWBPR]

A staff member brought his personal mobile number and transferred it to a new EE business account.  That staff member is now leaving and wants to take his number back.  We want to transfer another number to that account and keep it on. EE tell me that because that number is now associated with the business account, the only way to do this is to terminate this account and pay the termination fee (which is nearly £1k).  I am at a loss as to why we just can't assign another number to this account?  

[mikeliuk]

Hi @AWBPR ,

Have you asked whether EE would be willing to agree with the departing staff member that he would take over the account for that single SIM, or is it part of a bundle of SIMs that must stay together?

You could port another number to replace the personal number but then the departing staff member would lose his personal number.

It simply makes no sense for a private individual to transfer control of a personal and private number to a third party business (the employer). I believe at this point, under the terms and conditions, the customer (the employer and not the staff member) is granted a license to use the number by EE. In an ideal world, no one should ever find himself in this position as personal and private numbers should stay under the control of the individual and not placed under the control of an employer, and the employer should not allow porting in of a personal number.

[Jon_K]

Hi @AWBPR.

Welcome to the community.

Is your account corporate or small business?

Does the number user wish to stay on EE or move to another network?

Jon

[AWBPR]

It's small business.  The staff member wants to go to a personal BT account.    BT and EE are now merging, but I've been told that their mobile accounts are still separate.  

[AWBPR]

It's a single SIM, and if the staff member wanted to move to a personal EE account it wouldn't be a problem, but he wants to go to BT.  Given that EE and BT are now merging I thought we'd be ok, but apparently the mobile areas are still separate and so we'd still have to pay the early termination fee.  

The staff member wants to keep the number as this has been his personal number for years.  I know...... we shouldn't have allowed him to transfer his personal number over...didn't think it would be such an issue to transfer back.  lesson learned!  

[Jon_K]

Thanks @AWBPR.

If they're looking to move to BT the account would be automatically closed when the number ports out, which in turn would charge you the termination fee.

You could try speaking to our Customer Care team again but I'm not sure they'll be able to work around this.

Jon

[mikeliuk]

Hi @AWBPR ,

From reading other threads on here, it seems like EE is sometimes willing to swap numbers between a contract SIM and a PAYG SIM so the best play may be to obtain a PAYG SIM and fall upon the mercy of EE.

[bristolian]

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@mikeliuk wrote:

From reading other threads on here, it seems like EE is sometimes willing to swap numbers between a contract SIM and a PAYG SIM so the best play may be to obtain a PAYG SIM and fall upon the mercy of EE.

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Which would have exactly the same effect on termination fees as porting out.

The pay-monthly contract is being terminated in any and both cases.