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Call Kurtis: Someone Stole My Phone Number Of 25 Years

ROUGH AND READY (CBS13) -- Nancy Henderson could not call out, because she said someone stole the phone number she's had for 25 years.

"I tried calling our phone number and somebody else answered the phone," she said. "Our phone was not ordered to be disconnected by us."

Nancy said the man on the other end explained to her that he had requested it from his phone carrier Comcast – and got the phone number.

But, it had been a month, and Nancy and her husband Jack could not get their phone number back. She said they missed important calls from doctors.

On the other end, the guy who received Nancy's number recorded a voicemail message for those trying to reach her and Jack, saying "There's a phone number mix up with AT&T."

We left voice messages for the man, but never heard back.

We learned customers can request specific phone numbers, as he apparently did. But first, the phone company needs to see if it's available.

In this case, Comcast told us it checked with AT&T, which agreed to release the phone number.

AT&T should have said no, because it was already being used by the Nancy and Jack.

Consumer advocate Mindy Spatt said AT&T should have fought to return Nancy's number.

"It's absolutely an insult to the customer," said Spatt.

We reached out to AT&T; the company told us Comcast had claimed it had Nancy's permission to transfer the number, which is why they it was released.

But, Nancy said no one had asked her.

Comcast said that was not even possible.

"We just want our phone number back," Nancy said.

After we got involved, AT&T apologized and returned the number back to Nancy and Jack.

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