You know those robocalls and rando texts you get throughout the day? If you’re wondering how those marketers and phishers got your digits, are worried about the risks of your phone number being out there, and want the calls and messages to stop—here’s what to do.
For a quicker hack, you can also nab Incognito’s deal right now and score 58% off an annual plan using code LIFEHACKER. More on that below.
Start with a simple online search for "people search websites", enter your phone number into a few of the sites, and see what pops up. The results might scare you a little, and they should. Sites like these, plus dedicated data brokers, make it easy for telemarketers and scammers to net personal data like phone numbers, addresses, and even political affiliations without your knowing it.
Now that you’ve found some of the top site perpetrators, go through them and manually opt out of their search results. How to do this varies from site to site, but many times sites will bury their opt-out options in their privacy policies. They want it to be time-consuming—and it can be. Do your due diligence and keep records of which sites you opted out from, so you can check back every three months or so and make sure that you’re still off their list.
You can also save yourself the headache of sending and monitoring all those requests by signing up for a personal data-removal service. A solid pick is Incogni, who’s offering 58% off annual plans right now with code LIFEHACKER (normally $179.96 per year, now $75.36). You can add up to three phone numbers, emails, and addresses, and Incogni will find the brokers likely to have your information, send out removal requests, and keep sending them out—while you kick back and monitor the entire process via your dashboard.
Your phone number is out there for the robo-dialing. In order to avoid unwanted calls, identity theft, and phishing, sign up and save on an Incogni plan today.
