Forum Discussion
Port-In Delay
Phone port finally went through this afternoon after I took up my case with three or four of Smarty's webchat agents. They escalated my case after I badgered them yesterday citing technical issues on their end.
Took a whole week. Good luck to anyone else doing number ports.
Whilst I appreciate that this won’t be any consolation to you Jaybird the faults , yes faults, lay with PlusNet Mobile, who are well known for causing problems when people port away from them. PlusNet know full well that ultimately, it’s responsibility of the receiving network, in this case Smarty, when numbers are ported away from PlusNet, so they are just shirking their responsibility.
You only have to Google “Problems porting mobile phone number away from PlusNet” to get an idea of the amount of issues PlusNet are causing when people port numbers away from them. As PlusNet mobile will soon cease to exist, they don’t give a monkeys about their exiting customers.
These issues go back over a year by the way.
https://community.plus.net/t5/Mobile/Plusnet-issues-porting-numbers/td-p/1867530
I'm currently on their own Forum boards trying to glean more answers but, like usual, customers are stuck between what seems to be two companies pointing the finger at each other. I've been told it's both sides to blame at this point, so just going to sit back and watch what happens.
Thanks for the information.
The issue you currently have is that number porting “takes two to tango”, in this case PlusNet and Smarty, but PlusNet aren’t leading the dance properly.
Until such time as PlusNet release your number properly, allowing Smarty to take it over, Smarty and yourself and stuck between a rock and a hard place. With their poor porting history, plus the fact that PlusNet will soon cease to exist, due to BT Group deciding that EE will be the mobile arm of their group, it’s likely the soon to be unemployed PlusNet staff just don’t care, perhaps understandably (BT Mobile is also affected, it’s no longer accepting new customers and will soon be subsumed into EE)
Again, this won’t make you feel better, but when I ported my number from EE to Smarty on June 2nd this year, it worked flawlessly, because EE played their part in releasing my number promptly and properly.
I've been on Plusnet forums throughout this and they've been nothing but polite and helpful. I certainly don't get the impression that their teams are being lazy or 'not leading the dance' so to speak. They told me that if numbers are 'well-travelled' across different providers, which mine has been over the years I've had it, then each one needs to update their records to show that it's with the new provider, and this can take time.
Most concise explanation I've had for days. I did contact Smarty chat again and was told to be patient as the number transferred during system downtime and they also have a higher volume of enquiries than normal, so that to me says it's mostly on Smarty's end. As is their responsibility according to ChalkyChap, too.
My Plusnet sim has also stopped working so the account has officially been closed with little further trouble, and I'm officially using Smarty's sim but it still carries the wrong number. I managed to get my important call yesterday using other half's phone, but not exactly convenient. Ah well, at least I'm avoiding any possible spam calls while I wait. And ghosting all the people that nag me with an actual reason to do so, lol.
That’s certainly a new one, that every single network someone has used has to update their records each time a number is ported, never ever heard that before, nor have I read or heard about it on various mobile phone forums. If that was really the case, I am sure it would be common knowledge by now.
Hopefully, as PlusNet have cancelled your account, your number can still be ported, as usually, accounts and numbers need to be active and live to be ported.
