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.

Registered In National Do Not Call Registry But Still Receiving Unwanted Calls?

National Do Not Call Registry - implemented in 2004 by the FTC was aimed to contain phone numbers of US citizens who do not want to receive any telemarketing calls. Regarding to the last surveys 92 out of 100 people who have placed their phone numbers on the list report to receive less unsolicited calls. 78% of the poll participants claim to receive much less or none unwanted calls. This proves that creating such a national registry was indeed a good move of US authorities. What is important, the registration is fairly easy and can be either done in the internet or by calling 1-888-382-1222. You will be asked to give the phone number you would like to put in the registry as well as e-mail if you're doing it online. There is no need to enter any additional details such as address or even your name.

Although the provided stats clearly show that the National Do Not Call Registry prevents most of telemarketers from calling your number, there are still numerous incidents when you receive such calls while being listed in the NDNCR. Some of the calls will surely be illegal and you can easily file a complaint about them. However, before filing anything, I'd like to encourage you to read the rest of the article, where you will learn a few exceptions from National Do Not Call Registry.

The first granted exception concerns business lines which are not protected by the NDNCR which means that even you have listed your number in the registry everybody is allowed to call you with his offer and you will not be able to complain. Second exception applies to politicians who can call you with their agitation. However, in the 2008 Congress under the pressure of Citizens for Civil Discourse discussed launching a National Political Do Not Call Registry which we would be opened to voters who don't want to be called by any politicians. Unfortunately, only three politicians actually voted for it.

You also shouldn't bother complaining when you receive survey, debt collectors or non profit organization calls. These are not restricted by the NDNCR. There is also a regulation which let companies who have been in business relationship with you for over 18 months to call you without your consent. If you wish not to receive calls from such companies, you will need to ask them individually which should surely prevent them from calling you again.

You ought to remember how much time has passed from the moment you listed your number in the registry. There is a 31 days hold period during which telemarketers are still allowed to call you. After this time they should stop calling you. Very important thing is also checking if your number actually is listed in the registry. It can be simply done by visiting a verification page of FTC website.


If you believe that none of the above mentioned exceptions concerns your situation, you are free to file a complain. Filing it is very easy and can be done online or simply by calling 1-888-382-1222. You will be asked a few questions regarding the phone call which you think was unsolicited. FTC has also produced a simple movie about filing a complain:

The movie is not stricly about Do Not Call Registry complains but clearly shows the proccess of filing one.

Cellphone Phone Books - Do They Really Exists?

Several years ago when cell phones started to become extremely popular US government created a lot of regulations intended to protect cellphone users. Due to the fact that they have to pay not only for out bounding calls but for each second of incoming call as well, authorities decided to stop telemarketers from calling cell phone numbers. FTC created a National Do Not Call Registry which is a huge database operated by government comprising telephone numbers. These are not only cell phone numbers but land lines as well. As stated, when a number is listed in the NDNC list, you can't call it with any business matter.

The other important regulation is that any form of trade of cell phone numbers is strictly forbidden. This means that you can not collect hundreds of cell phone numbers and then sell you list to as many telemarketers as you manage to. Cell phone numbers are not land line numbers and they can't be sold this way. There are of course exceptions to this rule, but you should bear in mind that selling or buying mobile phone numbers list is illegal in the US. For example if you enroll in some advertising list and allow the company to resale your private information, then they are allowed to trade your information. That is why you should always read how your data will be used by companies which demand you to give personal details such as name, address and phone number.

A few years ago there was an idea of creating a huge cellphone phone book. Thea idea come from two big telecoms companies which wanted to assemble their databases consisting of hundreds of millions of records. When the idea become public, there was a lot of buzz around this new project. Many people were complaining about privacy issues and stated that creating this kind of database is against the current US law. The arguments lasted for a few months and finally the telecomss gave up and the idea was abandoned. That was the biggest attempt to create a nationwide database with all US cellphone numbers.

Currently there are a few private owned companies which operate several data banks with cellular phone numbers. However, these are not often called cellphone books, the name reverse cell phone lookups is much more popular to describe this kind of business. Most of them operate abiding the US law and take care about people's privacy. They are not as big as the previously mentioned database were meant to be, but they still have around 40-60% of all mobile phone numbers operating in US. Access to them is usually based on a small fee.