Company is cancelling Mobiles & charging £300 to keep number.

mrgubby · 24 Mar 2013 at 16:30

My company has decided we don't need mobiles any more for business use. I can't complain about that, after all if there isn't a business case for them it's just a waste of Company money

BUT

When we've asked if we can keep the numbers (some of use have had them for years) we've been told we can BUY the numbers for £300 !!!

Is this normal / realistic / legal ?

Ps. That's just for the PAC, no contract no SIM no phone :mad:

thep02 · 24 Mar 2013 at 16:34

Cool just change your number then, it's not that hard to send everyone a generic text telling them it's you with your new number, your boss is a jerk.

Rroff · 24 Mar 2013 at 16:36

Sounds a bit steep, theres probably a fee from the company they had a contract with for the phones for PAC codes, no idea on the legality of it, but sounds like your company is profiting on top of that fee :|

dasyad · 24 Mar 2013 at 16:41

If it's a business phone then why do you still need the number?

mrgubby · 24 Mar 2013 at 16:47

dasyad said:
If it's a business phone then why do you still need the number?

A few years back we were given the option that instead of the yearly "phone upgrade" we could use the company SIM in our personal phones with a specified minute / text allowance. A lot of us took that option so we would need to carry two phones

I can send a group text to people who have mobiles but I've still got a lot of friends / family who use those landline things

thep02 · 24 Mar 2013 at 16:52

mrgubby said:
I've still got a lot of friends / family who use those landline things

Bad luck, you'll have to initiate some voice calls then, unless you're considering giving into the jerks blackmail, I wouldn't consider giving him my new number by text or voice.

Dangerous · 24 Mar 2013 at 16:52

Who has said the £300? Your company? If so yes its their number so they can charge you

If its not your company then are going through a third party for your phones? Yeah they can charge this. Depending on the contract you might be able to go direct to the network.

dasyad · 24 Mar 2013 at 17:05

Sounds like a right mess to be honest

Do you not pay anything towards your personal usage then?

Hxc · 24 Mar 2013 at 20:48

I'd try and contact the network directly and play very dumb.

Rich_L · 24 Mar 2013 at 21:30

I'd just suck it up and take one of the many excellent deals available to new subscribers these days and let everyone know your new number.

Also, make a point of refusing to answer any work-related calls or texts on your personal phone

thep02 · 24 Mar 2013 at 22:46

Rich_L said:
Also, make a point of refusing to answer any work-related calls or texts on your personal phone

Good call!

dasyad · 24 Mar 2013 at 22:49

If they haven't been paying for personal usage for a few years then £300 isn't that bad really when you think of what they've saved

Definitely start refusing works calls on it.

a1ex2001 · 25 Mar 2013 at 13:19

dasyad said:
If they haven't been paying for personal usage for a few years then £300 isn't that bad really when you think of what they've saved

This if you've not been paying for calls for a number of years then consider this time to pay the piper!

I'd be tempted to pay anyway just to avoid the hassle of a change if you divide that £300 over the rest of your life (assuming we don't ditch phone numbers!) it's not much!

TheVoice · 25 Mar 2013 at 13:59

thep02 said:
Good call!

It won't be if he doesn't answer them.

a1ex2001 said:
This if you've not been paying for calls for a number of years then consider this time to pay the piper!

I'd be tempted to pay anyway just to avoid the hassle of a change if you divide that £300 over the rest of your life (assuming we don't ditch phone numbers!) it's not much!

You'd actually pay £300 just to keep a number? Crazy, let's hope the network operators don't get any ideas.

dasyad · 25 Mar 2013 at 14:22

TheVoice said:
You'd actually pay £300 just to keep a number? Crazy, let's hope the network operators don't get any ideas.

This scenario is a bit different though because the number isn't actually his but is actually his companies. Also it looks like he has being using it for personal usage, now if he hasn't paid for his personal usage over a number of years then £300 isn't that bad in this particular context.

Showboat · 25 Mar 2013 at 14:27

I'm sure if you kept the number you would still answer company calls on it..... Sad that your boss can't see this. I would not be giving the new number out to anyone at works.

TheVoice · 25 Mar 2013 at 14:29

I don't see any reason to pay your own employers £300 just to keep a number.

In fact, if they're not providing company phones any more, I think I'd much rather have a new number that they don't have.

dasyad · 25 Mar 2013 at 14:44

TheVoice said:
I don't see any reason to pay your own employers £300 just to keep a number.

In fact, if they're not providing company phones any more, I think I'd much rather have a new number that they don't have.

I know this is a big if, but if he hasn't been paying for his tariff and has being using it for personal use then he has been saving himself a fair amount of money, thus 300 then doesn't sound bad.

Of course if he has been paying for his own usage then it isn't worth it and it might be worth seeing 8f the network will just give him the PAC.

Overall though it's a messy situation to be in having the same number for personal and business. Shame we don't get any dual sim options here

mrgubby · 25 Mar 2013 at 14:55

dasyad said:
I know this is a big if, but if he hasn't been paying for his tariff and has being using it for personal use then he has been saving himself a fair amount of money, thus 300 then doesn't sound bad.

We supply our own phones but are given a strictly enforced "allowance" (all recorded as benefits for tax etc)

The company benefited from this by getting cheap SIM only deals, not having to arrange backup phones and having 24/7 access to us.

I've not worked out who has got the best deal out of the arrangement over the years, it's just having to stump up £300 to buy the PAC doesn't seem right

After all you can get "full monty" SIMS for £140 per year !

estebanrey · 25 Mar 2013 at 15:00

Rich_L said:
Also, make a point of refusing to answer any work-related calls or texts on your personal phone

THIS!

Where I work, the try to do the whole "you don't need a business phone" when what they actually mean is "Why do we need to buy you a phone when you've already got one and have free minutes on it?"

We do have work phones here, but I'm agency officially (even though I've been here 3 years) so don't qualify, however my bosses of course all want to know my personal mobile and think nothing of phoning me on it in the evenings or when I'm on lunch.

It really irks me, I do choose whether I answer it or not but even then I get told off for not being 'contactable' sometimes.