Back in 2007 Skype hit the headlines when they had to cancel all 0207 SkypeIn numbers in the UK. At the time they offered users the choice of a replacement 0208 or 0203 number instead. As can be expected users weren’t best pleased with using the number on their websites, their headed paper and their business cards, not to mention the number stored in many of their clients mobile phones.
Now it’s the turn of the Italians to fall foul of SkypeIn numbers. Skype have just announced “Whilst we made every effort to try and restore your Online Number we were unsuccessful and as a result, all Online Numbers have been withdrawn in Italy.”
They’re offering a full refund for all users last payments, but that doesn’t go anywhere near covering the loss of your businesses phone number. The advice that if you want to keep your number you’ll have to make arrangements with an authorised Italian service provider who will port the number on your behalf will probably cost considerably more than the existing SkypeIn service.
Back in 2007 Skype was still a relatively new company and as such might be excused for such an almighty faux pas as to lose their customers phone numbers. Four years later it’s totally inexcusable to have sold SkypeIn number which they’ve then lost and Microsoft must be spitting feathers having just completed the purchase of Skype. Not a good start for their new business acquisition.
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We use skype in as our main business phone line but never give it out directly. Instead we purchased (you can get them free) an 0845 number which redirects to our skype in number. This way we can point the 0845 to any phone number we like. This protects us if skype lets us down and has been really handy when moving premises.