How Do Telemarketers Get My Phone Number?

How Do Telemarketers Get My Phone Number?

Of all the ways that telemarketers can get information about you, these resources are largely broken up into two different branches: public directories and business relationships. Chances are, if you have a landline number, you receive a lot of telemarketing calls. Though customers can request that landline numbers remain unpublished, and there is always the Do-Not-Call registry, one of the major sources of corporate call lists are public directories like the white pages. If you have a published landline number, you can pretty much guarantee that your name and number appears on corporate call lists across the nation.
Of course, just getting your number off public directories does not mean that telemarketers will necessarily become a thing of the past. After all, there are other ways that telemarketers can get your number, largely through existing business relationships. Any time you have a legitimate business relationship with a company, they get your name and address. Not only is this information added to their corporate call list and used to contact you in the future, corporate call lists can also be sold. One telemarketing company can buy another's corporate call list, and with it, your name and number.
While the availability of public directories and corporate call lists make it easy for telemarketers to get your number, there are some things you can do to protect yourself. First, reverse phone lookups allow you to confirm that a suspect unknown number is a telemarketer or to find out more information about a telemarketing company. The more you know about telemarketers, the easier it will be to determine how they got your number, and the overall legitimacy of the call and company.