Reactivate a deactivated mobile number

[asadguy]

Hi @Chris_B, appreciate your comments here and other posts.

Could you please help me understand how to do this - I tried calling 150 and they said there is no way for them to search up a specific number. He did not allude to anything said here.

I am very keen to retrieve an old number and it may be possible via the last 6 digits but not sure who to communicate this to.

Would it be because i called from a PAYG sim that i was given this advice, and need a pay monthly sim? How do I verify what i have? 

Thanks in advance

[Mod edit: Moved post to its own thread. Added title too]

[Katie_J]

Hi @asadguy. 

I would recommend giving us another call. 

Customer care agents have the ability to search for a specific number to see if this is available to reconnect.

Katie

[asadguy]

@Katie_J thank you for your reply.

I'm really struggling here. My phone was destroyed and my WhatsApp contains the old number that's been deactivated. I have 10 years of memories with my wife who has stage 4 lung cancer.

I called again and they said there is no chance of getting the number. I have cited these forums and the guide said they may be thinking about the hibernation period.

To clarify, my phone number was permanently deactivated a couple months ago.

He said wait a few months for it to come back into circulation and it may be possible then.

[Christopher_G]

Hi @asadguy,
I'm really sorry to hear about your wife's diagnosis. I can completely understand why recovering those WhatsApp messages is so important to you.
The thread you originally replied to is about searching for a new memorable number, rather than recovering a previously deactivated one, so I've moved your posts into a separate thread to make it easier to get the right advice.
You've done the right thing by following @Katie_J's suggestion and speaking with our customer support team.
From what you've been told, it sounds like the number is currently in quarantine. Once it leaves that quarantine period, the team may be able to check whether it's available again. Unfortunately, there's no guarantee that the number can be reactivated or reassigned to you, as this will depend on its status at the time.
If your main concern is accessing your WhatsApp account and message history, it may also be worth contacting WhatsApp directly to see whether they have any options available to help recover access.
I appreciate this probably isn't the answer you were hoping for, but you've taken the right steps so far.
Chris

[asadguy]

Thanks @Christopher_G 

Do we know how long a quarantine period is roughly? 

[Chris_B]

@asadguy  It’ll be quicker to reach out to what’s app to get this resolved then waiting for the number to come out of quarantine.   It’ll be over 12 months as EE have to be sure that anything associated with that number has been removed because by the user if it was to go to somebody else as they ( EE ) wouldn’t want someone getting notifications or anything that were meant for you.     Even though you are that user of that number the quarantine period has to be ran first for this very reason. 

[Christopher_G]

I've been looking this up through our internal systems, and I cannot find even an estimated time, @asadguy 

All of our internal help information says that, if a number is not reactivated within 90 days of it being deactivated, the number will be lost. The customer support team can try searching for it once it's out of quarantine, but there's no way of us saying for certain how long it would be, or if it would be successful.

Chris