Horrible process and lack of assistance

If I could 0 stars I would! I’ve been using a certain number for many many years, and all of a sudden MTN decides to recycle my number without any notification or communication. Now I understand the number should be active (which it was), I was receiving most of my calls to this number, as well as SMS’s. I had no need to purchase airtime and data as I was always hooked up to WiFi. This number is linked to all my banking accounts, accounts, the traffic department, so there was definitely activity on the number itself. This person who now has this number will be receiving all my personal SMS’s and notifications. Not to mention that my WhatsApp is linked to this number since everyone has this number for me. I will definitely be lodging a complaint with the ombudsman, as I feel they have now caused a breach in the POPI Act as well. I tried calling the MTN contact centre who was extremely unhelpful, spoke to Nangamso who was supposedly getting her “supervisor” Thabang, to call me back in an hour, it is now 6 days later and no call back. Not to mention that Thabang advised me that communication was to me about the disconnection of the number, but when going into the store and getting them to call the contact centre, they were told that no communications is ever sent for this. Pathetic to say the least!