TL/DR - My old personal phone number seems to be unused right now. Is it possible to rent that specific number and get SMS (etc.) to it to be transferred to my other phone and/or email?
First I think it’s important to mention that I am a total noob to this kind of stuff. I’ve had my old personal phone number since forever and the same work phone number since the past decade. As years went on, almost everything got done through my “work” phone, and only ended up keeping my personal number through a cheap account “just in case” (since it was hypothetically possible for my employer to keep my professional number if I left or got fired somehow, so I never felt 100% comfortable entirely relying on it, you know…).
Anyways. The cheap phone company I’ve used to pay just to basically avoid losing my old number went out of business following many shady things. They had an obligation to give their ex clients the option to transfer to another provider with their same phone number, but it wasn’t done.
It’s bad because MANY accounts to various apps and services were registered or tied to that number. Some I now can’t access because it requires a confirmation SMS. And again, even if it looks like a waste, I REALLY want to keep my old number for various other reasons.
I see that the number is unused right now. Could I “rent” it from here and then get everything that’s sent to it forwarded to me in some ways?
I apologies for this post’s length!! I’d rather give all the details and context/motivation, etc. But I’ll add a TL/DR section above.
If you took the time to read my post and/or decided to reply, let me thank you so much for your time and help, it’s really really appreciated :D!
Sorry to hear and is there a contact there you can use?
How recent is your most recent invoice with them, can you take a screenshot of the “account” showing the phone number perhaps?
First will check if it’s in any available pools of numbers, a long shot. The next thing we can try is porting the number over, if you can send the full Canada number via PM here I can do some more digging.
So incredibly grateful for your thoughtful reply! You took some of your time for this and I really appreciate it; it’s a fact that isn’t lost on me at all
I’ll send you a PM right now with the phone number. If it’s not possible, it’s not possible eh, but either way it says a lot that you’re willing to try it even if it’s a longshot.
Following the PM to you I’ll write a more complete reply tomorrow morning (I wanted to at least post something to you right now, at least to thank you, even though I’ve got the classic exhaustion double vision and so I’ll have to sleep a bit).
I also appreciate the fact that you took the effort to read the whole thing and comment about the context. Again, super appreciated dude.
I’m not sure if it’s normal, but nothing in my account tells me that my PM has been sent (I can’t find a “sent message” tab, and the others tabs are also empty.
I clicked on your username. Then “message” on the upper right corner. Wrote my message, but there isn’t a “send/reply” button on the bottom left, just “message”… One clicked it didn’t confirm that my message got sent or anything. Hopefully I didn’t messed this simple thing so much that the message I sent is public somehow and everybody can see the number lol (if it’s the case, let’s delete that please haha).
I’ll from a confirmation that it has been received before sending you another PM.
In-case anyone is curious, we did not find this specific number in our inventory however we’re working with the client to see if we can port the number in from the current carrier. More info on porting under the “Porting information for Canada” heading.
(if it’s the case, let’s delete that please haha).