Asked for old number, was given new number.

[parkrjj4]

For some background, I had previously been on a pay as you go plan with EE with my old phone. About a month ago I ordered a new phone through EE, and opted for a physical sim card. When I received the phone I put the new sim card in, but I wasn’t receiving texts— yet my new data plan was working with it just fine. I began using my old sim card as my number still worked, and I don’t leave the house much as it is. Fast forward to today, I realised they gave me a new phone number on my new sim card. I specifically asked for my OLD phone number on my new sim card, and that hasn’t been upheld. I do not want a new number as I have had my current one memorised for years. Everything I am reading is telling me that it is going to cost £35 to change my number, but I specifically told EE I want my old number when switching. Planning to go in to my local EE store in a couple days to see if they can fix it, am I going to be forced to pay for the switch? 

[Matt_124 · Accepted solution]

If you call EE they should be able to move the number across from PAYG to the contract line (providing the number you want to keep is still active).

The £35 is for the re-number service where someone wants to request a brand new fresh number, but this does not apply to porting a number from another SIM.

There is a specific service for moving from EE PAYG to Pay Monthly and following this would've enabled your number to automatically transfer and continue using your existing SIM. It also may have gotten you a discount if you had been consistently topping up before this. This process would have been available through your Online Account and guided you through the steps, it needed to be done when ordering and can't be applied retrospectively.

Who did you specifically ask for your old number on your new SIM?

New SIMs from EE will always come with a separate number, after which point the customer ports their previous number over from their old provider. By sidestepping the usual pre-pay to post-pay process, EE had no way of knowing to transfer a number.

[Chris_B]

@parkrjj4  Your number is migrated to the new sim you can not have 2 sims with the same number.   Your new sim has a temporary number on it until your number is moved over to the new sim and this can take up to 24 hours.  But you need to the new sim in a device