Originally, I wrote this on reddit’s privacy subreddit, and got immediately blocked because I used a new, private account… go figure, right?

Here’s the body of the post:


I wrote advanced because most of the answers I found link to different paysites that are blocked by Facebook, Twitter, and of course Google. Some of the links I saw here link to an App on Google’s Play Store… the irony.

I’m looking for a way to get a phone number. So far, this is way harder to do anonymously than it should be for an individual.

Most places online reject gift cards you can buy with cash. Since you also need a phone, you’ll need to have it delivered somewhere, so that takes out online shopping unless you want to pay someone cash to get the package for you I guess.

In theory, you should be able to walk up to one of those cheap phone pay-as-you-go places (most owned by T-mobile these days I think) and pay for a phone and a pre-paid plan with cash. This is expensive (around $100 for the phone and the plan for starters) and they usually have instructions to collect a credit card # from you even if you won’t use it. You can try the gift card in here, I didn’t try that yet, but it seems like this would fail like the places online fail you (anyone has a different take?)

If there is a place online that would provide you a number for a monthly fee, and that number would work for these accounts, you need to pay for those. How do you do that anonymously?

You can create a Google account without a number, and maybe trick Facebook etc. into allowing you to create an account using that account. Eventually, this falls apart. Google asks for another verification eventually, Facebook scans for accounts that were created by minors (one of the ways to create an account without “adult” requirements like credit cards and phone numbers), and you might get locked out if you use a popular VPN server too fast.

So, how do you do that? Did you ever get a second, really private phone number? How?

  • anonymous8900TOP
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    4 years ago

    Hi @k_o_t@lemmy.ml ,

    Just wanted to point out that even though Google allows for the phone number to be posted to these numbers as verification, it doesn’t seem to work. This is based on what I tried today.

    I tried to get another Google Voice number. I got a verification code sent to one of these numbers. I put the verification number back to the prompt from Google Voice. I didn’t get an error message or any comments, but then I saw in the account that I do not, in fact, have a Google Voice number; instead, it asked me to go ahead and get a number with Google Voice as if I haven’t done it.

    After repeated attempts with no success and reading up in Google Voice forms, it seems Google Voice does filter numbers that are not listed with the cell phone companies. I’m not sure how that works but that means that if a number is not with a carrier somewhere, then it won’t work. This pretty much means the only way to get this done is to get a second line.

    I wonder if you heard anything else.

    • k_o_tM
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      4 years ago

      well, this sucks, but now at least you know this :woman shrugging: