Fucking seriously, I have spent 3 days trying to transfer a phone number from one carrier to a new one. My old carrier got bought out and now the service is being ruined so everyone will transfer to the parent companies service which is stupid expensive. So I’m going to a completely different provider cause fuck em. Yet the “account #” for each of the numbers I have on my plan is fucking different. One used the sim card number the other the IMEI number. Yet both phones lost the sim number on the website. I spent 3 days trying to get this number to transfer using the fucking sim card. Then I finally call these fuckers and they tell me it’s the phones IMEI. So I have to call my new provider and have them reset the transfer request. Like wtf? Why does capitalism have to fuck everything up into the most awful and convoluted bullshit? I mean, I know why, it’s a rhetorical question but fucking fuck. This shit should just be a government supplied service. You shouldn’t have to “shop around” and change your service ever. It’s such bullshit.
Ok rant over.
My country is far from being a bastion of user protection but they finally fixed the hellish experience of switching cellular providers a year or two ago (also for changing ISPs which was even more hellish and often didn’t even work). It used to be just as horrible as what you described, I really feel for you. One of the ISPs (that’s also a cellular and landline provider) is even state owned yet it’s still not much better than the private providers.