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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Author
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Topic: How to stop unwanted calls to previous user of my cellphone number?
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
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Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 01-07-2013 07:04 PM
The collective F-T wisdom would be appreciated on this one.
Just over a year ago I bought a T-Mobile (United States) pay-as-you-go SIM card, and put it in an old cellphone for use when I'm staying with my fiancee in Southern California. The roaming charges I was racking up using my British one over here were seriously unfunny, hence this solution.
The problem is that the previous owner of my phone number appears to have vanished off the face of the planet leaving rather a lot of people interested in contacting him, many of which, surprise surprise, are businesses that lend money or extend credit to people.
Even though I've had this number for a year now, I still get 3-4 calls or voicemails a day from people trying to contact the elusive Mr. Johnson. And it's not just the same company every time. I'd guess that they're costing me about $5 a week, and even when I explain that there is no Mr. Johnson at this number, most of them don't give up.
I've put my number on the do not call register, but that only covers unsolicited marketing calls. I have a strong suspicion that Mr. Johnson is still going around giving people this number, even though he no longer has it, and probably for suspicious reasons.
The only solution I can think of is to get another SIM card and thus a new number, but that would be a serious pain as there are now a load of people who have this one, and it would mean laboriously notifying them all. Andf furthermore, there is no guarantee that the new number won't previously have belonged to someone with a colourful past, either. Before I bite the bullet and do that, I just wondered if there was anything obvious I could do that I haven't thought of to make these calls stop. Thanks in advance!
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
![](http://www.film-tech.com/ubbmembers/534a.jpg)
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 01-13-2013 08:17 PM
Dave - many thanks. I feared that the situation was something like this, and will pay a visit to the T-Mobile store in San Bernardino tomorrow and see if they'd be willing to change the number without charge; and especially if they can give me a number that has not been in use before, or at least not for a few years. When I chose the number when activating the SIM online, I chose one that looked easy to memorise, which in retrospect was probably a mistake. Presumably T-Mobile will be able to see if any of the other unused numbers that they have has had a previous owner recently. Though the area code I'm in (909) covers a very big area and has existed for 20 years, so I guess the chances of snaging a 'virgin' number are not good.
The phone in question is an ancient (as in, 2007 vintage) Blackberry. It would be possible to put some of the numbers in its address book as DNA, but the callers still leave voicemails (in particular, an outfit called the Texas Guarantee Company, which has been calling pretty much daily for the last couple of weeks) and it still costs time and money to listen to them.
Thanks again for the pointers.
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