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Actually, if an user has assigned themselves an user name as oppposed to relying solely on phone number, they should be able to port over account. But despite number of articles (and some official docs) urging users to do so it sounds like a lot of people simply don't care. Though, it could be more straight forward, though.

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I wouldn't rely on this. My LINE was set to a prepaid number that I had let expire on purpose. I thought I would be fine because I also had a username set. When someone else registered my number, I lost about 90% of my contacts. The only contacts I had left were ones that I was actively in conversation with. I believe this was actually a bug, but there isn't much recourse if it happens to you.

Ah, I see... I know when they've started expanding outside of Japan, they've actually dropped requirements to have a phone number associated with the account, and allowed Facebook account and E-mail address in lieu. Although, the requirement has been in place for Japanese users for a while -- I think it's now universally the same.

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