Girlfriend's number disconnected without notice

[st3ph3nR]

My girlfriends number has also been removed without prior notification. Even though it is used mainly as an emergency contact she has used it occasionally  in line with your hibernation rules and it still has ample credit .It is very concerning as she has mental health issues and it is used by the doctors as her contact number. I called your customer service and they would not reinstall nor would they explain why it was disconnected. We now, during these difficult times, have to source another phone service and go through the process of  reorganising contacts. some of which require verification. As I am also with EE I wonder how long it will be before my number is also removed ?! This is very poor treatment of customers.

[mod edit: added subject] 

[XRaySpeX]

@st3ph3nR : Sounds like your PAYG SIM may have gone into hibernation due to non-use. If it has, topping-up now would be too late.

When did you previously make a chargeable action? EE PAYG SIMs are deactivated after 6 months of non-chargeable use. You then have a further 3 months period of grace to call EE to reactivate it before it is lost completely.

You needed to make a chargeable action like making a chargeable call or text, topping up or buying a Pack or Add-on, not just using your mins, texts or data from your pack.

[st3ph3nR]

The phone was topped up around February this year. It has been used about half a dozen times since then with chargeable actions as the credit has reduced (she regularly checks the credit as she worries about running out) so I dont accept the hibernation response. Why are customer services refusing to tell us why its been stopped? And given that its less than 6 months why are they refusing to re activate ? I notice that others are having similar problems, have EE upgraded something that may be causing these issues ?

[Peter_W]

Welcome to the Community, @st3ph3nR 

Are you confident that the phone has successfully been used for calls, texts etc within the time since it was topped up in February?

Topping up absolutely counts as a chargeable action, but if the SIM had already been placed into hibernation prior to this, then it wouldn't have counted.

Provided everything has been working though, there's no way this would have been past the point of full disconnection at this stage.

As a first port of call I'd recommend getting back in touch with our team so we can double check things, or alternatively you can find details on how to log this as a formal complaint on our help page here.

Peter

[st3ph3nR]

Thank you for the info. I will let you know how we get on.

[Chris_B]

@st3ph3nR  Customer support will only speak with the account holder, so unless you have previously been authorise to speak on her behalf customer support will not deal with you directly, as you say you called customer service about this. 

[st3ph3nR]

Yes, I am aware of this. The account holder called yesterday and whoever she spoke to refused to supply any information. That is why I am trying this route. But we will try again tomorrow on the back of this advice.