Some AT&T customers in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico are losing their mobile phone numbers
AT&T apparently is no longer able to provide customers with phone numbers in the two markets that they sold off to Liberty. Those numbers will be used for AT&T subscribers located in the mainland U.S. instead. The customers in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico will not only receive the aforementioned $100 gift card, they also will be refunded the number change fee.
AT&T also revealed that the number of customers involved in the number change is small and that most former AT&T customers in the two markets ended up moving their accounts to Liberty. As we already pointed out, only those who used their phone mostly on the U.S. mainland stayed with AT&T and are being forced to change their numbers. And only those who are forced to make the change are being notified via email.
This email has a heading that says, “Exclusive offer to help you change your number.” The remainder of the message says, “Hi (name of customer). We want to let you know that we will no longer be able to support your wireless number ending in xxxx in the future due to the recent sale of AT&T Wireless in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. While this means that you will need to change your current wireless number to a mainland number to stay connected, we’re here to help.”
AT&T does say that affected customers do not need to accept its deal right now
One workaround suggested in a response found in the same subreddit suggested that the numbers need to be ported to a another carrier before being moved over to AT&T. That’s not Liberty playing hardball, it simply needs to be done this way because Liberty and AT&T use the same point of sale (POS) and billing system. As a result, it would appear to the computers involved that you were trying to port a number over to the same company where the number now resides which can’t be done.
AT&T says that affected customers do not need to accept the deal that the carrier is currently offering. However, the carrier notes that these subscribers are going to lose their current phone numbers eventually and at that time, the deal offered by AT&T may be less valuable than the one now being dangled by the wireless provider.