OT extra phone listing

[micky]

Should I put an added entry for myself in 411.com, switchboard.com, etc.

I know one advantage. There may be more and I don't know the disadvantages.

I used to have a home phone listing without an address, but I've never had or wanted an unlisted number. I'm happy to have people find me, especially now that the statute of limitations has expired.

I was listed under my legal name but I paid a dollar a month for a listing under the name people call. That is, Micky, in addition to Montesquieu.

When phone books went away, I hoped the second listing would continue online but it hasn't.

One can add a listing for free. But should I?

What can go wrong?

Will I get more spam calls? Or do they just dial sequentially? Or get numbers from other sources?

Are there other reasons not to list myself again?

Are there more reasons to put the listing in? Will I get more chances to win the Publishers Clearing House prize?

This is labeled OT becuse it's not a cellphone, but I figured you guys are *the* authorities on all thing phone-related.

[Carlos E. R.]

...

What country?

[micky]

Sorry, USA.

[Ed Pawlowski]

I get plenty of spam call with no listing that I made. People that I want to talk to have my number and see no reason to advertise it to others.

There are only about six people that I talk to regularly and they know how to contact me by phone, email, text, visit.

[gfretwell]

All listing does is give the phone scammer a name so they can sound more legitimate. Nobody has my cell number and it is off most of the time but when I turn it on I still get calls about the expired warranty on my car and my credit card rates. Those have to be robo dialers.

I do get crap now and then by people who insist on having my cell and I just say I don't have one. If they get shitty after that I take my money somewhere else. Sometimes I give them the landline tho. Try texting that, bitch. I am sort of surprised the land line company doesn't have a text to speech app tho.

[Ed Pawlowski]

My cell has the CT area code from when I got it 20 years ago. I get calls for assorted CT things like solar panels and such. I give them the phone for the police station of my former town. I also have a few different names I give them too.

Seems a few have my home and cell number programed into their system and they hang up on me now. Many will curse me out after I play with them too.

Tonight was the vacation for Hilton Resorts. It was eight days and seven nights. A list of places I could go. I asked if I could do the eight days in Las Vegas and then the seven nights in Cancun.

Then the Amazon charge of $799. That is a legitimate charge. It is a gift for you mother because she gave me a great BJ yesterday.

If I waste their time some poor sicker may not be called.

[gfretwell]

If you call my house you better say something I care about right away. I seldom get far enough to know what they are selling. When I hear that unmistakable click/thump when they pick up the call from the robo dialer I hang up. The only thing I will do if I am feeling whimsical and someone calls me Gregory is the Lebowski gag. "Nobody calls me Gregory, I'm the Dude ... yada yada" They usually hang up right away but I got all the way to the end and the guy on the phone said "OK Dude, the reason I called ..." I listened to him a while and said No.

[Joerg Lorenz]

Am 02.09.21 um 01:37 schrieb micky:

I never got the impression that a private person called me because my number is listed in the official directories. Those who want to call me have my fixed line number as well as one of my cell numbers. That happens in Switzerland.

Mobile numbers are not listed by default.

Things look quite different if you have a local or regional business. A listing of the phone number, address and e-mail is advantageous.

[Carlos E. R.]

I know they have when they mention (old family acquittance or relatives) that they had lost our number.

In Spain there is no mobile listing.

Indeed. Wait, listing of email? That I have not seen. Street address yes, certainly.

My reason to have my landline listed was to to help old contacts finding me if they lost my contact. Similarly, I keep the same number as my parents had, so same number for sixty years. But then I started getting spam (from other phone companies) so I asked my number to be removed. But I don't dare removing the line precisely because it is the number old relatives/acquaintances have.

I no longer think it is important to be unlisted, because the spammers can get my data from one of the several hacker attacks to companies holding databases of clients.

[angelica...]

I've been getting calls about help in paying off my student loans. At any rate, the ones that leave a voice mail often mention that. Always good for a laugh.

I don't answer the phone if the Id shows something weird. Yesterday I got a call allegedly from Honolulu. Sometimes they're trickier, and spoof my exchange so it looks like they're local.

Cindy Hamilton

[Ed Pawlowski]

They don't even question that I still owe for student loans even though I graduated in 1967.

[gfretwell]

In the US you can port your land line over to your cell when you get rid of the land line so they have no way of knowing if they are calling a cell or not. OTOH there are some LATAs that are always a cell unless someone ported a cell number to a land line but I bet that doesn't happen often enough to mention.

[gfretwell]

A business directory will have what ever information you give them and the business actually pays to be listed in most. The regular phone book is a thing of the past here. I just get a business directory (yellow pages) and some had a few token residential listings in the "white page" section. That is even getting rare. I haven't really looked at one lately. I drop them straight in the recycle bin but I don't remember seeing white pages anymore.

[gfretwell]

I never had a student loan. Back in my day we had to pay in advance and there were no loans I ever heard of.

[Clare Snyder]

And I never HAD a student loan because back then my Dad was self employed and deemed able to finance my education - - - I ended up paying my own way.

[micky]

I get a lot of calls from my local exchange. But they're all spam. Everyone I know who lives nearby doesn't have that exchange.

[micky]

You're a slow pay.

Maybe you were in jail for 50 years.

[micky]

This is the sort of thing I had in mind, or anyone who's lost my number, or someone I meet, or who learned my name somewhere, who has never had my number. All good reasons.

No one gave another reasons so the only reason not to do it is the spammers and I hate to let them have an effect on my life.

I'm still thinking about it, but next time I come across the tab in my browser already where you can do it, I probably will.

Haha.

I like having two lines. And I used the wired line far far more. When I get a call in the car and I'm going home, I call back on the real phone, not the Dick Tracey phone.

Tnx all.

[angelica...]

I would consider those all good reasons to maintain my anonymity.

Cindy Hamilton

[gfretwell]

In my 55 years of having a phone number listed I doubt 5 people I know have looked me up in the book and called me. I have received thousands of sales calls tho.