Tmobile to Tmobile number transfer

For years I’ve had an old legacy prepaid account with T-mobile (phone #1).

A couple days ago I took advantage of a trade-in promotion at bestbuy, I traded in my old phone and activated a new “Essentials” post-paid plan with T-Mobile. I requested to have my old prepaid account number (phone #1) ported to my new phone/line.

I took the phone home and popped in the sim card bestbuy gave me and went through the activation process on bestbuys website. My phone was now working fine and I could call and make texts, however, my number appeared to be different (phone #2).

Panicking, I called customer care, they told me that the number port-in was currently in progress and this (phone #2) was just a “temporary” number until the port in process was complete. She told me the process would take 24 hours and I’d receive a text saying it was successful.

28 hours later and I received no such text and my number is still (“temporary” phone #2), I decide to head into a T-Mobile store this time instead of calling customer care again. The person who I spoke to was INCREDIBLY rude and didn’t seem to grasp that I was transferring my old T-MOBILE number. He kept saying “your old carrier isn’t releasing your number” I reply “You are my ‘old’ carrier” he says this doesn’t make sense and says there’s nothing he can do for me and to call customer care.

I call customer care again and this representative tells me the same thing the first one did, there’s a request to transfer (phone #1) to (“temporary” phone #2) and she says this process will take 48 hours (not 24 hours this time). She also tells me she’s going to send me a text message containing her name and my case number. I have never received this text.

It’s been 48 hours now and my number is still (“temporary phone #2) I don’t know what’s wrong or who to contact. I had a thought that maybe they’re trying to contact me on my (phone #1) to confirm/verify the transfer? The problem is that I accidentally left my old sim card in the phone I traded in to best buy. I have no access to (phone #1) so if that number is getting any texts or calls from T-mobile I can’t access it.

According to customer care though all I have to do is wait, they’ve made no mention about having to do anything on my (phone #1).

Is this really just a waiting game? Do I just keep calling customer care every 24 hours to be told it takes 72 hours… 96 hours?

Or is part of the port-in process confirming/verifying something sent to my old number? If so what do I do? My sim card is inside the phone I traded into best buy.

I’m posting here because I’m tired of the 2 hour wait times to get ahold of someone that just tells me I need to wait 24 MORE hours.

Any input would be greatly appreciated