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Six reasons this happens. Two of them are ordinary mistakes, and those are the ones to rule out first. Work down the list — they are in the order they are likely.
Whoever you buy from. This page is not about one company and it applies to us as much as anyone.
By far the most common cause, and the least suspected, because nothing is ever reported back as an error. The form was accepted, the number went on the list, and it has simply never been your number.
What to do: Get them to read the number back to you, digit by digit, on the next call.
A number sits on the list before it is cleared. If it has never once connected, it may still be waiting rather than broken. No published HMPPS policy sets a deadline for that check.
What to do: They should ask the wing whether the number is live on their account yet.
Approval is not permanent. A number can be reviewed after a transfer, after a change of category, or on intelligence. Neither of you is told when it happens.
What to do: They should ask the wing directly. A refusal is not always explained, but they can ask for it to be reconsidered.
A transfer can mean the phone list is rebuilt at the new establishment. A number that worked for a year somewhere else may need submitting again.
What to do: If they have moved recently, assume the list needs redoing and start there.
Most cheap-call services take the call on a landline number and send it on to a mobile. HMPPS policy requires prisons to restrict numbers linked to call diversion and re-routing services, because such numbers can be used to reach people a prisoner is barred from contacting. That restriction is why some numbers stop working months after they were approved.
What to do: Ask your provider, in writing, whether your number forwards calls. It is a fair question and the answer decides whether this is likely.
A failed card or exhausted credit stops the number without warning. The person inside has no way of knowing, and a dead number reads to them as being cut off by family rather than by a payment.
What to do: Log in to your provider and check the subscription or the credit balance.
The restriction is real and it is national. HMPPS policy tells prisons that requests to add 0800 numbers, and numbers linked to call diversion and re-routing services, must be restricted.
Of the services whose pages we have actually read, Cellphone Rocks and FoneSavvy and NeatPhone and Second Ring forward the call on. That is a fact about how they are built, read off their own sites — not a claim about why any particular number stopped working, which we have no way of knowing.
RingYard sells a landline number too, so this paragraph is about us. Ours is built to ring your handset directly rather than forward a call between two lines, but whether a given prison treats that as inside the restriction is their judgement. Nobody can promise you a prison will approve a number, and you should not believe a company that does.
Interception, monitoring and security of prisoner communications policy framework, paragraph 7.9 — HM Prison and Probation Service / Ministry of Justice, issued 11 August 2026. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/interception-monitoring-and-security-of-prisoner-communications-policy-framework
The Prisoners’ Families Helpline deals with this every day, costs nothing, and is not selling you anything.
0808 808 2003
Monday to Friday, 9am to 8pm. Saturday and Sunday, 10am to 3pm.