Landline port incomplete

[ColinD]

I transferred from TalkTalk to Vodafone on 20 February. Everything appeared to have gone perfectly. However, I discovered people on TalkTalk/Post Office and our son on Three could never reach us.

I have taken this up several times and wondered if anyone knew the magic words I need and who I need to speak to. The staff appear to be trying to help, but nothing is being achieved. I believe it is termed a Split Transfer and was probably caused by TalkTalk, but Ofcom say that Vodafone are responsible for its resolution.

Anyone know how common this is, and how it can be solved?

[Stubbo]

Hey @ColinD 

Great to hear our Customer Relations team were in touch and gave you a call! If you need a hand with anything else, just drop us a post 😁

[AlistairS]

This sounds similar to the issue I'm having.  Moved from Virgin Media in May.  I can make outgoing calls but can't recieve them.  I have been in touch with 1st and 2nd line support and getting nowhere.

Just had a chat message ftrom 1st Line support telling me that the fault ref ticket I was given has been automatically closed without resolution!

[ColinD]

You may be better off if no one can contact you.

They can check the number associated with the line by giving you a BT code 17070.

This may or may not give you the answer you want, but you will be in a better position to talk to the helplines.

The ball had been dropped several times. I raised the non resolution through a form on he web site and they did contact me 2 weeks rather than 2 days later. I now have a complaints portal which I hope works better than the methods used elsewhere.

If they do not respond as promised raise it again as soon as the time specified expires. Their system appears to have no memory and will happily time things out.

I do not think this is covered by their scripts and you seem to have to go back to square one repeatedly and I have not found any magic way of avoiding this.

[Beth]

Hi @AlistairS, I'm sorry to hear you're having issues with your landline. If you haven't already, please free feel to contact our Customer Care team here and they'll be able to re-raise the ticket for you, if it hasn't be done already. Please let us know how you get on 🙂

[AlistairS]

Hi @Beth,

 I raised a complaint  ticket over the weekend as I was gettting nowhere with  first and second line support.

Not been contacted yet though

[ColinD]

After several stutters and false starts, With me forcibly insisting that testing the line for the hundredth time is not going to solve the problem.

I have now embarked on the dangerous process of taking a temporary number then hopefully reclaiming my number I held since 1978 in two weeks time.
Vodafone has not been able to describe how this will work, but have said if I do not do this some people will never be able to contact me.
The process has now started. The temporary number is accessible from our mobiles. We can dial out. Our old number is unavailable.
So far so good.
We asked our son to phone from his mobile. He is now able to reach us on the temporary number (this is the first time since 20 February), but he still received ring tone from our old number.
Should I expect anything to change before our number is reclaimed in two weeks time?

I will report back on the success or otherwise of the enterprise.

A phone where you can never be certain that someone can reach you is never going to be satisfactory. I wonder how many people are in blissful ignorance of this? Because one of the people was our son and then we heard from another person worried we never answered our phone we could have gone on for years not realising.

[AlistairS]

Still, not heard back within the 48 hour frame the complaints team.

The only reason I know about the landline was my father had tried calling it and assumed my number had changed when he couldn't get through.   Fair enough, everyone else uses Whatapp to contact me.  However, it all boils down to paying for a service that can't be used as intended.

[ColinD]

It is difficult for a bank to contact you on whatsapp, or a docotor, or innumerable other people have a legitimate reason to do so.

Having to change your number is an inconvenience and should not be needed in normal circumstances. Number porting issues can and should be reported to OFCOM and they agree it is a disincentive to people changing provider.

Their mantra is that competion ensures an effective market.

Their monitoring of the problems people end up with is in my opinion not very well thought out and things going on behind closed doors not transparent.

It will soon be a reqirement to have a smart phone as well as internet access.

Have you confirmed your phone line number by dialling 17070. If this is your old number and your father phones this and gets ring tone, but your phone does not ring then you have a split port and there potentially thousands of people who phoned and all think you are out/ignoring them/that you don't have an answer phone.

Perhaps Vodafone need to set up a special group that investigates these. The alternative is many many hours of frustrating  attempts to sort it out.

Good luck.

[ColinD]

Update on my landline problem

Feeling very frustrated with the whole process.

I have had to repeatedly drive the process on as nothing seems to happen as promised and I had a limited time for which it was possible to have a temporary number.

I now have my original number back and it appears to work as before.

everything appears to work apart from a few people not being able to reach us.

is it worth waiting for it to settle?

there is an expedite process for number porting, but this has not been mentioned?

I am due a call back on Sunday is there anything I can suggest?

[Mark]

Hi @ColinD 👋 Without access to your account we'd be unable to view the notes left and actions that have already been taken. So we can discuss this privately and take a look, please contact us via Facebook at Vodafone UK, or on Twitter using the handle @VodafoneUK and we'll be happy to help.