Part of my job deals with other organizations. Businesses/gov orgs/etc. I've learned that most, if not all organizations, including my own, have "rules", but tevery org alsp has at least one person who has the power to make an exception.

Depending on the org, and/or the "rule" it could be lots of people. A lot of times they'll say you can't do this, not because you can't, but because they've decided they don't want that to be a common/advertised workflow.

So sometimes it just takes communicating with a sympathetic person. They can either help you out or transfer you to someone who can.

It doesn't always work, but it's probably your best bet. If you ask someone and they say no, try a different person. If you're really motivated try a different point of contact. Like instead of chat, email or call, or instead of reaching out to tech support try a related department. If you're consistently getting stonewalled by the gatekeeper, try asking about something else, anything else, where you might get transfered to a supervisor. Then ask to supervisor to help you.

Could be a lot of work for nothing though!

Alternatively, this might be a stupid idea, but see if your old number is currently in service? Maybe you could work out a deal with a phone company or something I'm not sure how all that works. Or maybe you could text your old number and see if someone responds lol. Some people are surprisingly helpful and nice.