[jhgb]

> Four or five times a year my phone would just stop working because someone had "persuaded" a call-centre worker at my provider to assign the number to a new SIM they could sell on eBay

And they were unable to add a note to that account to the effect of "don't do X under any circumstances"?

[Joe8Bit]

They put all kinds of locks on the account but they never worked, my assumption was that people who worked at the provider (who could unlock anything) were the ones stealing it!

[thatguy0900]

When i worked at att all of those things were just notes on the bottom of the account. You had to specifically scroll down and try to read it.

[jhgb]

And there was no audit trail for their actions? Wow.

[thatguy0900]

Assuming that its similar to att, there is an audit trail, but noone will care to look at it for you. They will give your number back and consider it solved.

[coryrc]

Now you know why SMS 2fa isn't secure :)

[kuroguro]

Could have tried transferring the number to another operator if that's an option.