u/marcusdavidc

I wanted to flag a serious product risk with Airalo phone numbers.

I used an Airalo eSIM number for SMS verification on a paid account. Later, that number became unreachable. Airalo support confirmed in writing that the number had been assigned to my Airalo account/eSIM, but also confirmed that it cannot be recovered, reissued, topped up, ported back, or otherwise returned to me.

I am not asking who has the number now. The problem is that Airalo sells temporary phone numbers that can receive SMS, so users naturally rely on them for account verification. But if the plan cannot be topped up later and the number cannot be recovered, a user can be permanently locked out of any account tied to that number.

That is exactly what happened to me.

Has anyone here found an escalation path at Airalo for recovering a prior number, getting an exception, or getting stronger written documentation for another company's account-recovery process?

Practical warning for others: do not use a temporary travel eSIM number for account verification unless you are certain you can keep or recover that number later.

I wanted to flag a serious product risk with Airalo phone numbers.

I used an Airalo eSIM number for SMS verification on a paid account. Later, that number became unreachable. Airalo support confirmed in writing that the number had been assigned to my Airalo account/eSIM, but also confirmed that it cannot be recovered, reissued, topped up, ported back, or otherwise returned to me.

I am not asking who has the number now. The problem is that Airalo sells temporary phone numbers that can receive SMS, so users naturally rely on them for account verification. But if the plan cannot be topped up later and the number cannot be recovered, a user can be permanently locked out of any account tied to that number.

That is exactly what happened to me.

Has anyone here found an escalation path at Airalo for recovering a prior number, getting an exception, or getting stronger written documentation for another company's account-recovery process?

Practical warning for others: do not use a temporary travel eSIM number for account verification unless you are certain you can keep or recover that number later.

Posting in case anyone else has hit this. 12 days locked out of my paid HingeX account because the phone number on file changed.

Six different Trust & Safety agents (Edgar, Francisco, Pablo, Andrea, Luis, Ryan) have refused to update the phone. Their only fix: delete the account and start over.

Here's what gets me:

I submitted my government ID via Jumio on Apr 21 at their request. My account is Selfie Verified, so Hinge already had my face matched to that ID. They've confirmed in writing that this verification is sufficient to authorize PERMANENT DELETION of the account.

But not to update a phone number on the same account.

Same verification. Lower-risk action. The latter, refused.

There's no privacy or security framework where permanent destruction is more identity-proof than a phone number reset. If anything, deletion is the *higher*-risk action because it's irreversible.

I've laid this out in writing. Six agents in twelve days, none have engaged the contradiction.

What I'd lose if I accept their "fix":

- Months of profile optimization (it was a high-performing profile)

- All match history

- All conversations

- HingeX annual subscription doesn't transfer to the new account

So they're effectively saying: pay us for the account we won't unlock, or destroy your data and start over.

Has anyone here gotten past the canned response? Was there a specific path or escalation that worked?

Deep Research has not worked for me since the GPT-5.5 rollout. Every attempt returns "Error loading app" or "Runtime error" before the research even starts. Refreshes, different browsers, mobile app, web, signed out and back in, none of it changes anything.

This is the feature I pay for. It is the reason I am on the Pro tier instead of just using one of the half-dozen free alternatives that now run deep research natively. Claude does it. Gemini does it. Grok does it. Perplexity does it. And ChatGPT, the one I am paying the most for, is the one that is broken.

What makes it worse is the silence. No status page acknowledgment. No in-product notice. No "we know, working on it." Just the same error, day after day, while OpenAI ships marketing posts about how good 5.5 is.

If anyone has a workaround, please share. If anyone from OpenAI is reading: this is not a niche edge case. The feature you are charging a premium for is unusable.

Looking for guidance on the right escalation path before I file a Consumer Protection Ontario complaint.

Facts:
- Package delivered to Kleinburg, Ontario on Jan 29, 2026.
- UPS charged $72.77 CAD as a brokerage fee on a low-value personal shipment.
- I paid contactless on delivery, so a credit card chargeback is not available.
- A UPS phone rep verbally promised a brokerage credit. The credit never arrived.
- I followed up by phone (1–888–520–9090) several times. The line routes to an offshore call center that says they have no authority over Canadian brokerage refunds.
- I emailed casbrokerage@ups.com twice with no response.
- I DM’d UPS on X. Their response three weeks ago, verbatim: “At this time, we don’t have another contact option to provide. Please attempt to contact our brokerage team again to have this resolved.”

Background that I think matters:
- A 2005 to 2011 Ontario class action (Sotos LLP, certified) found UPS Canada had violated the Ontario Consumer Protection Act for charging hidden brokerage fees without proper disclosure.
- Ontario’s 2025 consumer protection regulatory consultation specifically addresses brokerage fee disclosure as an enhanced disclosure requirement.

My legal question:

Given UPS has explicitly closed off internal customer care escalation, and given the Ontario Consumer Protection Act precedent against them for this exact fee category, what is my best next step in Ontario? Specifically:

1. Is a Consumer Protection Ontario complaint the right next forum, or is small claims court the more effective lever for a sub-$100 dispute?
2. Does the rep’s verbal promise of a refund (which I have logged with date and call duration) carry any contractual weight in Ontario?
3. If I send a demand letter citing the Sotos class action and CPA, does that have to come from a lawyer, or does a self-drafted letter on my own letterhead work?

Open to any other path I’m missing. Will share back what works for the next person stuck in this loop.