Discussion on question by Spotted_Flamingo: Does my company own my phone number?

Feeds

12:00

My company does not provides phones or phone numbers as most of our meetings are held over teleconferencing tools (e.g. google hangout, zoom, etc.) but they do require us to list a phone number as part of our email signature on emails to external clients, so I've listed my cell phone number which...

David Hammen

Did your soon to be ex-employer explicitly compensate you for cell phone upgrades or for upgraded connectivity during your five year tenure? Did they explicitly compensate you at all, in writing, for work-related costs associated with your personal cell phone? If they didn't, you can easily find a bottom feeder (aka lawyer) who will countersue for court costs, emotional damages, triple penalties for withholding your final pay, and maybe a hint at C level jail time.

If your soon to be ex-employer had any tech savvy, they would have had a PBX that could have forwarded a call to your company-provided number to your personal cell phone. That company-provided number is theirs; you have no right to it. Your personal cell phone number is yours; they have no right to it. They would of course have the right to sever the forwarding from their company-provided number to your personal cell phone number at any point in time.

Spotted_Flamingo

Everyone in the he company is a blanket $20/month added to their pay for home internet and personal phone usage but there is nothing in writing (or otherwise) specifically around cell phones. It smells suspect at best but wanted to make sure I'm not missing something obvious before going the lawyer route, ugh.

tech savvy they are NOT, but they seemed surprised by my opposition to this which makes me wonder if other have just freely handed over their phone numbers when they left which seems absurd.

David Hammen

Whenever one party even starts proceeding down the lawyer route in the US, the other party pretty much need to do at least start doing the same.They are hoping you do not want to do that. And it will cost you, a bit. A very strong recommendation when leaving an employer is not to burn any bridges. But the same applies to employers; employment is a two-way street. This is a huge bridge burning episode by your soon to be ex-employer. I've had the same cell phone number since "portable" phones were the size of a brick. This would be an "over my dead body" thing to me.

Stephan Branczyk

In which state are you located? Are you a W2 employee or a 1099 contractor?

nicola

I'm wondering why they didn't ask to relinquish also your name to them for the exact same reasons.

Solar Mike

12:00

All avoided if they provided phone and number. But they took the cheap route.

Jungkook

if they would own it you wouldn't have to port it to them

Zibbobz

Wonder what they would have done if you needed to have your own phone number changed - something people can easily do on their own.

joeqwerty

You need to find out what the laws in your state are regarding pay, final pay, etc. In most states they are legally required to deliver your final pay within a certain time frame, but in most states they also are only legally required to pay you the minimum wage for hours worked. So if you make more than the minimum wage you may find yourself with a very small final paycheck if they choose to go that route.

J...

What they're doing, I believe, falls under the crime of extortion. You have all the leverage here.

Chieron

They want to save money on switching the support number, informing all clients and so on. But of course, they are perfectly fine with you wasting your time doing the same (informing friends and family about the new number). Also, holding your pay ransom for something to which they have no claim.

user91988

12:00

This is an easy problem to solve. Simply ignore these requests until you leave. Once you leave, that's it. They have no actual power here, so they won't try to exercise any.

Bob Jarvis - Reinstate Monica

How big is this company? Just looking for an approximate number of employees.

MonkeyZeus

That sounds ludicrous. Accuse them of wanting to commit identity theft since people expect to get a hold of your personally when they call that number.

David Z

@joeqwerty I believe it's also quite common in many (all?) jurisdictions in the US that the company can reduce your pay rate going forward, but not retroactively.

joeqwerty

Unless you have a contract that states otherwise, they're only legally required to pay you the minimum wage. Your salary/hourly rate is a "gentlemen's agreement", they have no legal requirement to pay you what is stated in your job offer. Only a contract where your pay is stipulated in the contract is legally binding. If you quit or are fired, they are only legally required to pay you the minimum wage for the hours you've worked.

John Wu

You might consider throwing them a bone. e.g. you could offer to continue to answer the phone for 30 days to inform anyone who calls of a new number (that the company would own). You would want to be compensated, of course. Maybe there's a win-win in there somewhere.