No contract cell phones are often being frowned upon because, by popular opinion, they are being used by shady individuals or persons that have something to hide. But wait, there is one thing you do want to keep private – your personal cell phone number and information that is behind that. We all know how it is with the regular post and emails – they are a perfect target for a spammers, and so is your cell phone number. While it is not easy to get your real name, address and rest of the personal information from just a phone number, it can be used by modern door to door salesman to bother you with the information that you neither want or need. Situation is evolving in same way as in the story about annoying vacuum cleaner salesman who managed to get into your house and now just wont leave it.
Let me show you one simple example – say, you want to sell your house and you want to do it personally for whatever reasons of your own. Now are you sure it is a good idea to put into your local paper an ad with your personal cell phone number or, even worse, put your house online with it? Not only it screams – I will have a lot of money soon one way or the other, but this makes it perfect target not only for spammers but also can be a good way to scam you out of money by criminals – there are many such schemes floating around, I wont go into details, but have been bothered with one or another at least one time. Another reason are the modern spammers that would love to put a hands on a cell phone number with a wealthy person behind it – makes good target for selling whatever there is and this opens opportunities for bothersome calls and annoying text messages.
Call me paranoid, but I think this is just a perfect occasion to go to the local store and pick up cheap no contract cell phone that you can easily throw away after the deal is done and keep turned off during hours that you do not wish to be bothered by strangers. And today, you can get such basic phone for just 20-50$ and have it operational for a month or two and when the deal is done, just toss it – very little price to pay to have your privacy protected.
Be wary and be smart, do not expose your private information to the public without a good reason, better get a cheap no contract cell phones!