We lost access to one of our phones numbers recently - moving it from Three (UK) to Smarty (a trading name of Three). No access for 3 weeks over which time I spent hours-and-hours contacting them.
So many things tied to our phone number, including banking authorisation (work, charities, and home), online account auth (2fa), contact from school, contact with family, ... it was an absolute nightmare. The single worst customer support experience of my life AFAIR.
In the UK there are two Ombudsman for such services but one says they won't help until 8 weeks after you report a problem to the company involved (and the other somehow says they won't help at all).
It's really given me resolve to, instead of simplifying and signing the family up to the same services, distributing suppliers to avoid us all being stuck without service at the same time.
So many things tied to our phone number, including banking authorisation (work, charities, and home), online account auth (2fa), contact from school, contact with family, ... it was an absolute nightmare. The single worst customer support experience of my life AFAIR.
In the UK there are two Ombudsman for such services but one says they won't help until 8 weeks after you report a problem to the company involved (and the other somehow says they won't help at all).
It's really given me resolve to, instead of simplifying and signing the family up to the same services, distributing suppliers to avoid us all being stuck without service at the same time.