Split with partner, bill in their name

[#1]

I've been told by Plusnet that I would need my ex to cancel the contract for my phone number and then I would need to get a contract with another company before porting back to plusnet and requesting my old phone number. i repeated this back to her twice to confirm this was what she was saying.

Seems bizarre, has anyone else had experience of this and do you know of an easier way to get a phone number transferred from one person's name to another?

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Thanks for your post @blando 

I'm afraid we can't transfer a mobile number to somebody else's name and if the account holder wants to port the number out to another provider under your name, it'd need to be active (as far as I'm aware if we cancel the number you can't get it back)

To transfer a number out the account holder can text the word PAC to 65075 from their Plusnet mobile number, provide the new provider with the PAC and once the port completes we'll close their account down.

You'll then be able to request a PAC (assuming you're not in a minimum term contract with the new provider), and create a new account with us, provide us the PAC and we'll port the number back in to us.

Sorry for the convoluted way of doing this and it's not straightforward or easy.

[#3]

Order a free Three sim and transfer the number to it, you don't even need to put credit on it. If you want to go back to PN, you will need to get a sim from them and transfer it across again.

[#4]

@Gandalf 

This begs the question: Can you transfer a number from one person to another by just handing the PAC number over, or do names need to match?

[#5]

As far as I'm aware the names don't have to match but the account holder of the existing account will need to obtain the PAC and if they're happy to give it to somebody else, it'd be their decision to.

Also we can't transfer a Plusnet number from one Plusnet account to another Plusnet account using a PAC, and if it's attempted it'd 'break' the porting process and the number would likely be lost. 

[#6]

@Gandalf 

Thanks, Anoush. The trick is therefore to make sure that the number is ported to a different mobile company. Hence, as suggested earlier, a bried period on a monthly contract with a different organisation before transfering back would crack it.

That's one to tuck away in my brain somewhere

Thanks as always for your advice.

[#7]

Aye, it's not ideal but it's the way to go to achieve this unfortunately. 

[#8]

Thank you  everybody for your help, very useful and much appreciated 👍