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Giving up emails or phone numbers can be risky since someone else might take it and do something unpleasant with it. Facebook accounts cannot be taken that way
by lrossi 6y ago
Giving up emails or phone numbers can be risky since someone else might take it and do something unpleasant with it.
Facebook accounts cannot be taken that way.
- dharmab 6y agoWhen I was younger, a friend created a Facebook account in my name as a joke. My facebook-using parents found it and became very panicked that someone was stealing my identity. I now have a minimal facebook account that I log in twice a year to keep a current photo. It's like how businesses have to squat their own domain names on TLDs they don't use.
- lrossi 6y agoI didn’t think of that. It’s a good point, thanks for sharing.
- ourmandave 6y agoSome years ago my daughter set up a fake account with my name and friended a bunch of people from my old high school. When I found out I changed the password and have ignored it since. I now have a real account just for my gaming group and my old account occasionally pops up in my suggested friends list.
- polka_haunts_us 6y agoI'm curious if you could go more into the unpleasantness someone could do with an abandoned phone number. I inherited my mom's phone number years ago and recently had to dump it when I swapped my data plan. It honestly feels like the best thing that ever happened to me b/c I used to get daily spam calls and since getting the new number have gotten maybe 1 spam call total in the past two years, so had planned to change my number more frequently going forward.
- lrossi 6y agoAccount takeover for services where you registered the phone number for verification.
- meowster 6y agoIn case anyone doesn't want to give up a number, but doesn't necessarily need it, you can also park the phone number at a VOIP provider for about $1/month.
- beagle3 6y agoOr google voice for a one time fee of $25 if you trust google (and you could still use it through google voice)