How to have a truly unpublished phone number

Last summer, we purchased our current house from some people who were on the verge of bankruptcy. We got a pretty good deal, though the house had major issues (we had to pay $4k to have the former owners’ junk removed, had to replace the toilet and floor in one bathroom, and we’ve had to replace almost every major appliance in the place, including the furnace and AC).

We thought we had finally rid ourselves of the “issues of owners past” until this summer when we started getting calls from collection agencies looking for them. I was baffled as to why we would be getting calls for these losers when our telephone number had no connection to do with them. I finally grilled one of the fell automatons as to what led them to call our phone number. They said that they used a database that linked addresses to phone numbers.

I was incensed. I thought that we had an unpublished number. If that was the case, how could we end up in one of those directory databases?

So, I called Vonage and inquired as to how this could be. Initially, the moron I spoke to at Vonage had no clue as to the existence of these address-based directories. Upon reflection, I recalled knowing of them myself from my days as a summer employee of the phone company when I was in college. I couldn’t believe that Vonage had someone working their second tier of customer service (second tier, because I totally stumped the first tier) who did not know about these types of directories. Heck, you can even make use of such a directory yourself, for free, via Whitepages.com!!!

Upon further research, I found that our phone number was not actually “unpublished”. Since we had a directory listening under Verizon, we had one when we switched to Vonage. There had been a check box in the initial LOA with Vonage that had asked if we wanted to keep our same directory listing. I think I thought that the directory listing would go away when we lost our battle to keep our old Verizon number. Drat!

However, even if our number were “unpublished” it would not fully protect us from being listed in these address-based directories. Apparently, there are companies that pay to get phone numbers and addresses from various and sundry sources (mostly web sites that ask for your contact information). There was even some discussion regarding phone numbers harvested from retailers who ask for them on your checks when paying face-to-face.

While you can put your phone number on the “do not call” list, this will not protect you from ending up in these insipid address-based directories which can be used by the same people who are excepted from obeying the stipulations of the “do not call” registry. According to the FTC, the exceptions include “calls from or on behalf of political organizations, charities, and telephone surveyors would still be permitted, as would calls from companies with which you have an existing business relationship, or those to whom you’ve provided express agreement in writing to receive their calls”.

In our case, since the callers are trying to reach someone that they have a legitimate business relationship with (the former loser home owners), they are not in violation of the rules. And, while we have asked that they remove references to OUR phone number, the former owners were in such deep financial trouble, different companies keep calling us trying to track them down.

So, what’s a poor harassed receiver of such calls to do? How do you keep from getting such calls in the future?

We have a plan!

1. Have Vonage change our phone number; this time as truly “unpublished”.
   
2. Get a voice-mail only phone number to give out to non-personal contacts (web-sites, retailers, and other organizations that insist on having our phone number).
   
3. Block our caller ID before calling any one that we don’t want to have our real phone number.
   

For Item #2 above we will be establishing a non-personal phone number with eVoice. For $4.95/month we will get a phone number that callers can leave us messages on, without disturbing the peace of our home. Each time a message is left, eVoice will then send us an email to let us know that someone has left us a message. We can then check the message at our leisure and decide if (and when) to return the call.

We hate the phone. This strategy may help us to better manage our interactions with the dreaded beast. I’m not sure exactly when we’ll execute the plan. I have some work-related reasons to want to hold onto our current phone number for a while longer. However, I may pick up the eVoice number soon, to see how the service works, since they have a 30 day free trial of the service.

I’ll gladly accept any feedback on our plan, or any horror stories dealing with similar scenarios.