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Changing a cell phone number?


Night Elf
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I've been researching this. I'm getting numerous spam calls, like 6+ a day. Every time the phone rings, I just block the caller. I sure hope I'm not blocking someone important but I hate answering spam calls. Only a handful of people have my number and two businesses. Changing my number won't be a hassle for me, but will it be a hassle for my family? Is it easy to change a phone number in an existing contact?

One article said I wouldn't be getting a new number and may inherit a number with its own number of spam calls. Would you take the risk? 

I'm seriously considering it. I emailed DH to ask his opinion, but thought I'd ask here in case anyone has done this. What were the results?

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1 minute ago, regentrude said:

Takes 5 seconds.

Thank you. DH suggested I get on the Do Not Call Registry first and if that doesn't stop the calls then I can change numbers. I'm glad to hear it won't be a hassle for anyone. I probably have 10 contacts, if that, so sending messages won't be hard. 🙂

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Have you asked your provider if they can change the number of your phone, without you getting another SIM card?  If so, they can do that in their system and you have a new phone number. When we changed providers, early in 2015, I got a SIM card from the new provider and they "Ported" my old phone number, from our previous provider.  Same SIM card. In your case, you want a different phone number, from the same provider which is much easier for them to do.

Yes, you could get a number that is worse than the one you have now. That is a possibility. But your number is getting frequent SPAM calls.

Question: How long have you had that phone number?

In my case, I do not want to change phone numbers, because important contacts have it and send text (SMS) messages to it, in addition to phone calls.   But, we are in Colombia and I receive infrequent SPAM calls on my cell phone.

There is also a "DO NOT CALL" list in the USA.   I put our magicJack phone number on that list, 2 or 3 years ago, and that did seem to reduce the SPAM calls to almost zero.

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I have had my cell phone number for over 20 years and haven't had a problem until yesterday. I think I need to take the blame because I was messing around on my phone yesterday at lunch seeing if I could get a rewards card. I did not read the fine print, something I have fussed at my mom and stepdad for. Dumb, dumb, dumb. That can't be a coincidence. I did put my number on the Do Not Call Registry. 

I looked up info about changing my number with Sprint. It's no charge and my voicemail messages will be deleted. I don't have any, so no big deal. It says I should not lose my contacts. I have an iPhone and have never seen anything like a Sim card. 

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25 minutes ago, Night Elf said:

I have had my cell phone number for over 20 years and haven't had a problem until yesterday. I think I need to take the blame because I was messing around on my phone yesterday at lunch seeing if I could get a rewards card. I did not read the fine print, something I have fussed at my mom and stepdad for. Dumb, dumb, dumb. That can't be a coincidence. I did put my number on the Do Not Call Registry. 

I looked up info about changing my number with Sprint. It's no charge and my voicemail messages will be deleted. I don't have any, so no big deal. It says I should not lose my contacts. I have an iPhone and have never seen anything like a Sim card. 

If you haven’t had issues before, I wouldn’t change it.  And spam calls are getting worse no matter what you do.  DS doesn’t give it out to anyone and was getting a ton of spam calls before we did the nomorobo app. It probably wasn’t what you clicked on yesterday.  The new number could be a lot worse. If I were you, I would download the nomorobo app and use that instead.  It does have a small cost but it works very well.

The do not call registry is a joke. I swear I got more spam calls when I put my number on it than when it was not on it.  

Edited by itsheresomewhere
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I do not know that changing your phone number will help.  Many of the spam calls are not related to a business who has gotten your phone number making a solicitation call.  Most are randomly called numbers that are truly a scam.  I heard a report last week that iit is estimated that as many as 50% of the phone calls received on cell phones in the US next year will be scam calls, changing your phone number won't help this.

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2 hours ago, itsheresomewhere said:

If you haven’t had issues before, I wouldn’t change it.  And spam calls are getting worse no matter what you do.  DS doesn’t give it out to anyone and was getting a ton of spam calls before we did the nomorobo app. It probably wasn’t what you clicked on yesterday.  The new number could be a lot worse. If I were you, I would download the nomorobo app and use that instead.  It does have a small cost but it works very well.

The do not call registry is a joke. I swear I got more spam calls when I put my number on it than when it was not on it.  

Ok, will this help with the phone calls where I answer and I hear silence then a click like it's being transferred to a person? Or is this for automated calls?

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5 minutes ago, Night Elf said:

Ok, will this help with the phone calls where I answer and I hear silence then a click like it's being transferred to a person? Or is this for automated calls?

It does all kinds of spam.  People register the number in the system so if one calls that is known, it does like a half ring or no ring and stops the call.  If it is a new one that no one has registered it will ring through, you hit the button in the app to register it as a spam call and no more calls from it. 

Edited by itsheresomewhere
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