As many of you may know giffgaff recycle mobile phone numbers. Whether taken back from deceased or non used members or for other reasons. Often ex-members have previously used these recycled numbers as contact identifiers for facebook and the like with all the problems that rains upon the recipient of a 'bad' mobile recycled number.
It seems clear that giffgaff are not checking numbers against social media outlets to see if the numbers are still attached to LIVE facebook/twitter/whatsapp accounts before they REISSUE these 2nd/3rd hand numbers to new members sims and present real problems for new members in setting up their own social media accounts, using their recycled phone number which will be denied registration by fb and others.
giffgaff need to review their policy on reissuing recycled mobile numbers and come up with a failsafe system that prevents this problem and hints at a potential breach of data protection rules, when the recycled number identifies a previous member(s)
Those of you familiar with social media are probably aware of the reverse number search facility that unless disabled, can identify a previous giffgaff member, through their initial login registration using the giffgaff number but subsequently forgetting to update their new number or unable to do so through death or other reasons.
I myself was alerted to the problem when a series of debt companies called me asking for Mr ? xxxxx who I had no knowledge of. One of them let slip fb confirmed the persons identity. When I checked, sure enough the fb member was still displaying my newish giffgaff number. It took a long time I eventually through some prolonged persistance, resolved the conflict to my satisfaction.
However this should not have been a task that I needed to undertake.
It was the Network's responsibility, not OURS.
https://labs.giffgaff.com/idea/16704729/giffgaff-must-pause-recycling-of-mobile-numbers-due-to-social-media-problems
