“Lost” mobile phone number - can it be recovered?

[krtc27]

Not sure where to post this and apologies for the lack of technical understanding but… my mum has today had an utter nightmare transferring broadband/phone from Sky to Vodafone. She did not want her mobile phone contract transferred to Vodafone (she currently has a better deal on Vodafone through Lebaro which she wanted to keep).  
Somehow in the above broadband transfer process Vodafone have transferred her mobile phone direct to them but now my mums phone no longer works at all and Vodafone are telling her she cannot have her old mobile number back and she will have to transfer to a new number no matter what.

This doesn’t seem right.  i cannot understand a) how Vodafone can transfer her mobile contract without consent and b) have lost her number entirely which that it is irretrievable? I’m trying to help my mum remotely but don’t really understand what’s happening and how she can be left in this position? Can anyone shed any light/ know what we should be asking for/who to speak to, to get his mess sorted out? 

Thanks in advance!

[Charlotte]

Hello, @krtc27.

It's disappointing to hear about the poor experience which your mum has had, as it's our aim to make things as straight-forward as possible. 

With that being said, a home broadband service would be separate to a mobile line, especially with them being with completely different providers, so it wouldn't have been possible for us to move over everything as one. To move a mobile number from Lebara to Vodafone, it would've required a PAC, and that would've first needed to be obtained through Lebara and then deliberately given to us.

We can take a closer look into what's happened, however, we're unable to discuss any account specific information on this platform. If the account holder reaches out to us on Social Media, we can investigate why this has happened and what can be done to resolve it.