Lost my phone number to a defunct sim card.

[clee19]

Hi, I purchased a SIM card from Walmart and brought it home to activate.  During the activation process I filled out all the information and set to transfer my old phone number from a Telus account.  Something went wrong in the process and my phone says the sim card is invalid.  I brought the card back to Walmart and they checked the SIM card and agreed it was no good.  They gave me a new card.  Before activating that card I found my Telus account was closed and my number apparently transfered to Public.  

I have now activated the 2nd SIM card and set up an account. That card is working fine with a new phone number. 

What I would like is to retrieve my old phone number that seems to have been lost. I suspect it was trasnfered to the invalid sim card.

Thanks for any help.

[computergeek541]

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@clee19 wrote:

I used a prepaid voucher of $20 in the first activation. I did enter its PIN, but it never used it after the error. 

Upon activation of the second SIM card, about a  week later, I used the same vouchers PIN and was successful in redeeming the $20 on to the account. 

This is why I cannot understand the number being closed down from Telus. I don't imagine a number is ported until after payment, yet Telus says my number was, despite having made no payment to Public Mobile.

I do still have the old SIM card number,if that helps.

At least I have not paid for two accounts.

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Porting into an account that has never had a plan paid for doesn't actually surprise me.  I don't know 100% for certain, but my speculation is that the porting request gets submitted as soon as you press on the final acivation/confirmation button.  What is strange is that this didn't "burn" your voucher.

On a side, note I do know for sure that Wind/Freedom does allow numbers to be ported in, even if you don't pay for a plan.  At least for prepaid/"pay before" at Wind in the past, I have personally activated service and chose a plan but didn't "pay for the service" yet.  I had one of their voucher PINs and added the payment to the account later.

I do believe all this is fixable, but I can't say for sure how the moderators will want to go about this.  I suspect that it would be easier for them to credit your first account $20 because you number already ported to that first sim card.   Honestly, I am not sure they would even bother deactivating the second sim card on you, although they surely have the ability to that. 

The reason I believe that using/fixing the first account and sim is better is because sending a phone number from one account to another, while technically possible, is not something that carriers have ever been very willing  to do.  In fact, Public Mobile has a policy of not doing that if it's a case of it being requested by the customer.

The moderators can be contacted by clicking on the following adddress:  https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437

[clee19]

I used a prepaid voucher of $20 in the first activation. I did enter its PIN, but it never used it after the error. 

Upon activation of the second SIM card, about a  week later, I used the same vouchers PIN and was successful in redeeming the $20 on to the account. 

This is why I cannot understand the number being closed down from Telus. I don't imagine a number is ported until after payment, yet Telus says my number was, despite having made no payment to Public Mobile.

I do still have the old SIM card number,if that helps.

At least I have not paid for two accounts.

[mimmo]

how far in the process did you get with the first sim?  it seems the telus account was ported successfully to teh first sim. which means you paid for a plan.

having a second sim and active number means you also paid for a plan on this account.

some additional details are needed to help you go in the correct direction

[computergeek541]

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@clee19 wrote:

Hi, I purchased a SIM card from Walmart and brought it home to activate.  During the activation process I filled out all the information and set to transfer my old phone number from a Telus account.  Something went wrong in the process and my phone says the sim card is invalid.  I brought the card back to Walmart and they checked the SIM card and agreed it was no good.  They gave me a new card.  Before activating that card I found my Telus account was closed and my number apparently transfered to Public.  

I have now activated the 2nd SIM card and set up an account. That card is working fine with a new phone number. 

What I would like is to retrieve my old phone number that seems to have been lost. I suspect it was trasnfered to the invalid sim card.

Thanks for any help.

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Likely, the most important thing I will ask you will be this: For this first activation, did you ever get around to try to pay for the service?  If you did, going and activating another account would be a mistake because you will possibly have paid twice for 2 different plans. Also, as you are suspecting, it's possible if that happened, your number ended up porting to the sim card that went in the trash.  If that did happen, you would have to go and purchase another sim card, and then have Public Mobile's moderators transfer your service over to that replacement sim card.

If you never ended up submitting payment information for the first activation attempt, you should be fine.  Just go ahead and make the number porting request for your Telus Mobility phone number to Public Mobile by logging into your self-serve account and proceeding with the phone number transfer request from there.

Unfortunately, as you say that your Telus phone appears to have transfered to Public Mobile, I do strongly suspect what you fear is what happened.  It's fixable, but as a I said, you will need yet another sim card.    In addition, you would have to hope that the Public Mobile moderators can understand that you ended up paying for 2 plans when you only wanted one plan.

This next part is really for all new Public Mobile customers.  If you encounter issues with at-home/online activations, for the most part, you don't want to go back to the store.  They are not equipped to help with Public Mobile service issues.  Although there is sometimes some wait time, I believe in almost all cases, you're better off having Public Mobile's moderators to handle things.