"That's not the typical behaviour of someone who claims to be wholly reliant on that one single phone with no alternative."
I never said I had no alternative means of contact, I just said I only have ready access to one phone - the one I can no longer use. I mostly keep in contact with people via social media, emails and whatever else I can over WiFi rather than texts or phone calls - I find them to be much more convenient methods of communication - and mainly keep my phone as a backup in case someone needs to contact me in an emergency
"There is an alternative means of contact - using another phone."
As mentioned, how am I meant to be doing this when the only phone I have ready access to is dead because the people I'm trying to contact closed the account I'm trying to contact them about?
"I would recommend that your relative sets a reminder in future, that their PAYG phone is used for a chargeable action perhaps every 5months maximum - that allows some wriggle room."
My issue with the whole 'just make a chargeable action every 5 months' is less that it is a requirement and more that *I was not told or warned* that this was something that was happening, or even could happen until after it was already too late... Also, it's my phone that's dead, I have no idea why you're saying otherwise unless you've just not been reading what I've sent - my relative was the one who messaged me to tell me that they couldn't get through to me when they tried calling me, because the answering service said my number had been disconnected, which is why I tried to access my account online in the first place, only to be told my account had been closed
My issue isn't that I have no way of communicating, but that apparently the only way of contacting the people responsible for my account is by using the one method of communication that they have cut me off from
