Top Five Myths About Phone Numbers

1. You cannot switch to a cell phone and keep your old land line phone number
With Wireless Local Number Portability you have the opportunity to turn your old residential phone number into a wireless with a minimum of paperwork. All you have to do is to contact your current carrier and ask about the procedure. One thing to remember here is not to cancel your land line until you have the wireless line activated, since you can lost your phone number.

2. You cannot find out the owner of cell phone number, unless you work for law enforcement.
This could have been true about ten years ago. Although wireless phone numbers users privacy is still protected by law, there are special cell phone directories which can bring you some basic information about the phone owner. In most cases you will be able to learn his or her name, address as well as phone carrier.

3. You cannot stop telemarketers from calling you
This is your right to choose whether you want to receive marketing calls or not. If you find them annoying or you just don't want to waste your time for answering them, you have an easy method to stop such calls. The procedure is easy and can be done online - you should access the website of National Do Not Call Registry and enter your phone number. Once you complete this, telemarketers will have 30 days to stop calling you. If they don't, you have the right to complain to the FTC which usually prevents all marketers from calling you.

4. You cannot opt out from a phone directory
This is quite obvious one, but I still meet a lot of people who repeat this myth. Keeping your information in a phone directory is your right, but not a duty which means that you can request your data removal any moment you want. However, you have to remember that phone directory operator have 30 days for processing your request.

5. Cell phone numbers are going public
The myths origins take place at 2004, when somebody started sending hoax e-mails claiming that cell phone numbers will soon become public information. The e-mail encouraged people to list their phone number in the National Do Not Call Registry, although in fact per FCC regulations telemarketers are not allowed to dial wireless phone numbers. This means that you can list your cell number in the NDNCR, but actually there is no need to.