Shit, you’ve only had that mobile for a few months :crazy:
AFAIK your telephone number actually belongs to Ofcom and is leased from the Government by the telephone companies (this applies to fixed lines as well.) Telephone companies initially buy blocks of numbers and there is thus a market value for them.
They have only recently allowed people to “port” numbers as there are admin costs involved, which the mobile firms usually swallow in order to get a new customer.
On contract they also subsidise the cost of your mobile phone which they hope to make back over the terms of the contract.
You haven’t provided the mobile firm with any real profit, so unless you grovel they are unlikely to do jack shit for you such as letting you have your number back and like globalloon said they will mark your credit reference (to warn other phone companies!)
I’m not sure what happens with the phones, whether you are expected to return the phone as part of the debt (it depends on the contract). if its in the contract they could easily add the price of it on to your debt.
I’m not sure if you can unlock phones as easily as before, I think its a lot harder to change the IMEI (unique ID number) these days which also means the mobile company could block the phone as well if they wanted as technically its “stolen” or at least the value of it that they haven’t recovered from your payments..
That said there is still a lot of competition in the market so might be worth speaking to the mobile company (assuming you havent’ already been abusive to their staff as they will have that on your record as well). Maybe you may be able to convice them to convert you to PAYT to try and at least recover some of the cost they have shelled out by supplying you the phone upfront..
