Number marked for removal, despite recent calls made - scam?

[Chrysanth]

Trying to help my husband, who received an email at 12.04 today; screenshot via my phone attached (hopefully!).  He also received a text 9 minutes later, saying basically the same.  That would need several photos (because of the scrolling down needed to read it all), but could just quote it if wanted?  It ends "To find out more about top-ups please see 3.ie/c554"

He knows to steer clear of links in texts, uses a non-smartphone (with data set to off), and our signal can't do data anyway (e.g. following a link), so it's no danger re his phone.  It just seems strange, because he's made plenty of calls from his phone recently (including this year), and also sent some SMS messages.

 

Our concern is that if they're genuine, it sounds as if they're meant for someone else.  And if so, that it might be something to do with something wrong that a Mod noticed in his account a year or two back (when he finally managed to re-register at the revamped website). Though he wasn't party to what it was or how it was remedied, so doesn't know whether something had been hacked.

[Three_Stacey · Accepted solution]

Hi there @Chrysanth, thanks for alerting us to this. I have looked into these emails/texts and I can confirm that during a systems upgrade, these were sent in error. You can ignore these messages if the number is in use.

[Chrysanth]

Thanks, Stacey!

Could you just confirm what's meant by 'in use'?

Does any call or text count as being in use?

And after how long without use is a number removed?

[Three_Stacey]

What I mean by 'in use' is the phone number is being used to make calls and texts. 

So, a number will only be removed if it hasn't been topped up in 180 days and there have been no calls or texts in 30 days or more.

[Chrysanth]

Thanks for the clarification.  (Rings a faint bell, but I didn't know where to find it again!).

An unlikely scenario in our case, though.