O2 have SOLD my number to sales companies!

meer53

Just ignore them

Annie._2

That message about the accident or was it the missold loan insurance is certainly doing the rounds.

I am on Vodafone and have had both messages twice now sent from a mobile number. Even had the messages on the home phone, a recording of course.

Just ignore them, delete them and dont reply back or else they will know that have hit a genuine mobile number.

MisterBrico

Rather than running for the tin foil hats, surely its more reasonable to think some company is just firing texts out to random numbers starting 07000000000 and just adding a digit each time?

lufcgirl

gjchester wrote: »

Nothing to do with giving it out at all.

Automated dialers are cheap, lets say I dial 07123 000000 and then go to 000001 then 000002 chances are someone will answer sooner or later and as has been said out of a million numbers most will still be on the original network.

Let's say that is the case and an automated dialler dials every number possible. How can my number, which for example begins 077 and my partners which begins 078, be on completely different networks, mine starts with a prior sequence and I've never recieved a single sales call?

Exemplar

I started having this problem recently.....until I realised that I had put my number on car/home insurance comparison websites...DOH!

gjchester

lufcgirl wrote: »

Let's say that is the case and an automated dialler dials every number possible. How can my number, which for example begins 077 and my partners which begins 078, be on completely different networks, mine starts with a prior sequence and I've never recieved a single sales call?

Wikipedfia lists the following as usual mobile prefixes
074xx xxxxxxMobile phones (in use since November 2009)075xx xxxxxxMobile phones (in use since May 2007)076xx xxxxxxPagers (excluding 07624, used for mobile phones on the Isle of Man)077xx xxxxxxMobile phones (former 03xx and 04xx—mostly Vodafone and O2 (formerly Cellnet)078xx xxxxxxMobile phones (former 05xx, 06xx and 08xx—mostly Vodafone and O2 (formerly Cellnet)079xx xxxxxxMobile phones (former 09xx—mostly Orange and T-Mobile (formerly one2one)07911 2xxxxx
07911 8xxxxxWiFi numbers

074xx, 075xx, 07624, 077xx, 078xx and 079xx

By my maths that 51 million numbers that are possible in that range, Not to mention that if an autodialer gets a no such number signal it will flag it and not try again..

[Deleted User]

MisterBrico wrote: »

Rather than running for the tin foil hats, surely its more reasonable to think some company is just firing texts out to random numbers starting 07000000000 and just adding a digit each time?

If they started with 0700000000 they'd be kinda dumb, because 070 numbers are personal forwarding services, which don't accept texts

Wintermute

You get these calls and texts on every network, there's no conspiracy behind it, it's simple brute force, they have diialers, they go through a block of numbers and dial every one, whenever they get an answer that's not voice mail it goes through to an agent who will try and get you to sign up for something.

Text message spam is even easier, for around £10 you can get unlimited SMS for a month, they'll probably get 10,000 or so messages out at least before they're detected, even if they get a very small percentage of "bites" they'll profit (just like traditional spam).

There's no conspiracy, networks aren't selling on your numbers just like google isn't selling my email address to spammers.

Even if you only give out your number to your closest friends and family, there's nothing to say they wont add them to their outlook address book, sync their phone with iTunes (or similar software) and then get malware or a virus that harvests their address book for a spam list.

LittleMissMPB

I actually thought that it was insurance companies selling your phone number?

I did see something on TV a few weeks back about it. Roughly, when you make a claim on car insurance, the insurance company sell your number on to a "solicitor" - whether you tell the car insurance company you were injured or not. The solicitor then calls you and tries to put it in your head that yes, your neck does actually hurt (so they can get the fees), or the companies will text saying you are entitled to so much compensation for your accident and to get in touch with them if you want to claim it.

I started getting these after a car insurance claim. I wasn't even in the car at the time (neighbour reversed into it while it was parked up) and it went through her insurance, I have been tempted to text the 'claim' back and ask them what accident I was in as I'd really like to know about it... perhaps claim for memory loss too? But haven't so far as I really don't want to be spending money replying.

I may be wrong about this - only repeating what I saw on TV - we all know how reliable that can be sometimes.

JJ_Egan

I have the same problem with the Royal Mail they know where i live and are selling my address to junk mail .

jje