What Happens To Accounts When You Change Phone Numbers
 

I notice that some services use your phone number as the account identifier.

For example, I just signed up for Zelle (money transfer) via my bank - gave my phone number and that was it (I was logged into my bank account, so I guess they know its my account). I also signed up for WhatsApp and my phone number is my userid.

So . . . what happens if I give up this phone number and it is re-issued to someone else? What potential for confusion and mischief is there?

Toy can use your email address for Zelle.

I do think it could be a pain if you change numbers.

Don't change numbers.

I've had mine for 30 years and not giving it up for anything.

For example: a friend died a few months ago. His phone number was terminated. Does the person with that phone number have access to my friend’s WhatsApp account?

Possibly.

My neighbor gave my wife an extra plant he did not need.

Wife asked me to Venmo him $25.00

So I find his wife on Venmo, send her the money then text her I'd done so.

She responds, "I don't have Venmo"

:confused::confused::confused::confused:

To make a long story short after reaching out to Venmo and getting no love it occurs to me the mystery account is hers (she forgot she started to set it up but never completed) and associated with the email address you get from your broadband provider.

I knew she had switched to a different provider but I still used the old provider.

Since she no longer had an account with the old provider I just claimed her old email address for myself, went to Venmo and asked for a password reset which gets sent to the email, gained control of the account and paid myself back. :D

Guys like you are scary :-)

Been using a land line number that not longer exits at the grocery stores for a decade. The thing is, it was a business line and the number exists today on the net. Anyone who random gets that number will get a lot of calls about windows and glass, not to mention spam. The state lists it too as my license which I haven't had for 6 years. So it's sold to anyone that wants to purchase the numbers for all the contractors in CA.

Who cares if others use the number at the store? They can't buy anything, just get the "card price." I tend to go to non card places anyway.

Someone I know passed away and the best friend of the deceased used to text her phone number a lot on a daily basis for years. One day someone texted her back and asked not to send texts anymore. It took a while to convince her it was her deceased friends way of telling her to move on.

ai bot bumping an old thread...? I suppose it could be a person, but....

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1701275550.jpg

Yikes!

Years ago...1st cell phone, a "buy minutes" simple phone. I kept getting collection agency calls asking for some guy I never heard of. Finally, I was able to reach a collection agency supervisor...giving her my real name, telling her I just bought the phone, was assigned the number...finally got an apology. The calls stopped.

I would from time to time like 10 years after it was given up call my family, childhood home number and ask for me. Was great, they got all pissed! I prolly would have never kept calling if they did not get so salty about it....

A buddy of mine pays like $12 a month to keep his childhood phone number set aside, but not actually working or used.... his current house has another 20+ year old landline number he insists on keeping for his family's day to day....


great catching up with ya'all!

We buy dog food at Petsmart and take the dachshunds with us. They love hunting for spilled kibble under the sacks of dog food.

Petsmart wants a phone number for "our account" and it has discount points that relates to real money. We got the dog food there yesterday and my wife still just gives them the land line we killed off years ago. We save 8 bucks with the account.

I got my cell phone number 23 years ago.
The number used to be owned by GT Roofing. It got so bad that sometimes I answered to phone "GT Roofing". When I tole the caller what was really up they laughed.

Our former land line number was the number for Frontier Natural Gas before we got it. Frontier had gone belly up, several years before we got the number. We got constant calls asking about the stocks. I would them the callers Frontier was no longer around, and one guy said he just minutes ago, got the number from information.

I called 411 and asked for the number for Frontier natural Gas and she gave me my phone number. I said wait, we have a problem! I could here a lot of keyboard clicks, and she said, I see the issue. I will report it and your number will not be given out anymore. That slowed down the calls. One time at 2:00 AM or so the phone rang and it was some angry German wanting too know about his investments in stocks. I told him he was SOL and that they were gone, dissolved, nothing left. And I hung up and I went back to bed.

It was a nice day when my wife finally relented and let me kill the land line. All we ever got were political calls and sales calls.