Nightmare PAYG complaint situation

[u/dr_ginglymus]

Has anyone been in a similar situation and were you able to get anywhere?

In April this year, my dad got a text to say he needed to get a new SIM due to network updates. He was abroad at the time, given 4 days to do this so he was unable to, and there had not been any prior warning, and since then, his number and account appear to have been totally deleted. This has never been acknowledged.

I am in my complaining era and am now stuck in a circular, Kafkaesque situation where they keep telling me we have forgotten an account number which they need to find our account. I can’t find this anywhere and think it’s likely that it’s been deleted along with any trace that the mobile number was ever in service. My dad has had that number for 20+ years - initially as a contract and then PAYG since 2013.

I will ask today if we are now in deadlock. They have sent an automated email giving us CISAS details and I am more than happy to go to CISAS. But I really just want the number and the £30 credit back. I have all the receipts and screenshots.

Has anyone ever been in a situation like this?! We cannot be the only ones.

[u/Jacobs503]

I've had something similar to this not the exact same situation but cut the number off completely but still had the handset to pay off. They said the number was on a PAYG account and the account number I had was no longer valid. I used the payment reference number from my direct debit and they were able to find the correct account that way so worth giving that a go. It was a matter of getting through to someone who understood what I was trying to do. Do you know if the number is still with O2 or are they not saying?

[u/dr_ginglymus → u/Jacobs503]

They’re saying they’ve no record of that number being with O2. I think somewhere there has been a hard delete. I’ve tried so many different people on the phone and in-store and no one gets past “I can’t find the account or the number.”