An unusual adventure of a PKO BP client, a telephone number in the background

Portal Bankier.pl he described an interesting case of his reader who encountered the unexpected problem when trying to activate the IKO application. It turned out that her new phone number was “new” only in name and came from so-called “recycling”. The point is that Telecoms assign numbers that have not been used for a long time to new users. This can give different results, including problems using such numbers for example in mobile banking.

Your number is already being used by someone else

When trying to activate the IKO application, the PKO BP client received the message shown in the photo below. It follows that her new phone number was once used by another customer of this bank, who registered it there. In order for this number to be reused, it must be deregistered from someone else's account.

The bank requires the previous owner of the number to deregister the currently used number from the IKO application. I am currently using this number and they cannot activate the application. The man may be dead and will never do this, and I can't use the app without deregistering this number from his account.

– wrote a reader of Bankier.pl

The information provided by a reader of the Bankier.pl website shows that she can provide the same number for authorization of transfers and contact information. So theoretically it is tied to her account, however when someone sends her money to this phone number, it will be credited to the account of the previous holder of the number.

The bank is not interested in the fact that I have a contract for this telephone number. The submitted complaints were rejected.

– added a PKO BP customer

What does PKO Bank Polski say about this?

The PKO BP press office commented on the matter. In response to questions from Bankier.pl, it was informed that such exceptional situations require an individual approach. In accordance with the regulations for the provision of electronic banking services in this bank, When the customer stops using the mobile phone number assigned to the account, he or she should also remove it from the bank. However, this did not happen in this case.

So what should the above-described client of PKO Bank Polski do in such a situation? She should go to any bank branch with a smartphone on which she wants to activate the IKO application. To confirm that a given number belongs to her, the advisor sends an SMS to this number and asks for the code from its content.

The advisor at the branch should also submit a complaint on behalf of the client, which will result in the removal of the previous owner's application associated with this number from the banking system. However, this removal may take some time if you need to contact that user and ask them to re-register the app to a different, new number they are currently using.

– informed the PKO BP press office

In other words, solving the problem that the previous owner of a given telephone number did not deregister it from his bank account is not as simple as one might expect. The bank's response shows that it will be necessary, among other things, to contact the previous user of the number.