He transferred my phone to his plan to maintain/gain control.

So people keep asking me how did Trash get my phone number transferred to his phone plan…. This is a wild story so buckle up buttercups.

When I finally saw Trash on August 23rd 2022 — first time since he helped me move in late July (future story), I was making dinner and he asked to see my phone. Of course I have nothing to hide, so I gave him my phone.

What did he do with the phone? He transferred my phone number to his plan. He had set it up prior to this day — so all he had to do was send a text message to my phone from his Verizon account/plan to approve the transfer. While he had my phone in his hands, he clicked the link he received in Messages to accept/approve the transfer. And voilà, he now had control of my phone number. 

Fast Forward to Sept. 13th 2022.  When I would not speak with Trash — there was nothing to say — he had cheated, lied about it, stolen from me, and basically deceived me for months … I did not believe he was capable of speaking the truth, so there was no reason to speak with him at all. This frustrated him.. and he eventually cut off my service after he broke into my Mexico Condo on Sept. 13th 2022 (Retaliation Is Real – Home Invasion #2).

I called Verizon. They told me that my number could not be transferred back to my original Verizon account without Trash’s permission.  And of course Trash did NOT make me an authorized user on his plan/account.   I was beside myself with anxiety…. For those of us that work in tech, this means I now had zero access to any company software systems and I was unable to access any system that used my phone number for 2-factor authentication. This was no bueno.

As you know, I filed a police report with the Mexican authorities, Police report # 1995699, for the break-in.  I was searching the internet for answers and came across this article.  Using this information, I called Verizon and asked them what evidence they needed to perform the line transfer.   I was able to use the Mexico Police Report and the Ring Doorbell recordings as evidence to  do a Verizon Domestic Violence Transfer of my phone number from Trash’s plan back to my own account. 

• recording of the initial break-in on YouTube
• second attempt to break-in on YouTube

The process took way longer than it should have and the Verizon folks on this team could certainly have shown more care/concern/sense of urgency about the situation. After emailing them for weeks with little to no response ,I finally ended up going into a Verizon retail store in Casa Grande (a 3 1/2 hour drive each way) to give them a physical copy of the police report (despite having emailed it to them many times) and share the ring doorbell recordings. Once they had this evidence, Verizon took action and I was able to renew my old account and transfer my number back into it.  HUGE shout out to Sarah, I will never forget her knowledge and kindness.

This is a great program and I’d love to share more about it, but I have not been able to find anything about online. If any of you find resources, please put them in the comments so others may benefit from the information.

So that is how I lost my phone number and was able to successfully get it back.

Lesson learned for me —

• I will never depend on or share a plan with anyone, ever. I will always have my own account. 
• I will never ever ever ever ever ever hand my phone over so freely ever again. I know a lot of people who have an open phone/sharing policy with your spouse or significant other. Never again for me.  If a partner has a question about something or wants to see something on my phone, I will show it to them.