This is normal, I get it all the time.
It doesn’t.
Agreed.
A general note: Phone numbers are really cheap, so they’re affordable for everyone. For just $0.30 you can temporarily rent a number. Such scammer networks buy numbers in bulk, hundreds to thousands, for little money.
Anyone can search: Temporary phone number bulk. There are so many providers where you can get a hundred numbers for a few dollars. No need for a telephone company nor to provide your real personal information at all.
Even I, as an individual, could now legally rent an anonymous telephone number for $1 to register a few accounts. Therefore, checking the telephone number is unfortunately useless.
My question was to confirm that the scamming hasn’t gotten to a point that one can generate and use their own fake phone numbers without registering somewhere. The answer to the question is no. VoIP numbers are real numbers.
One may get a phone number for 30 cents, but adding a pay step to the process adds friction. Furthermore, the monthly fee for using it will be more than that. Having to enter a code also adds another friction point in the process if one wants to log in many accounts.
The idea is that the added friction points can reduce the number of casual cheaters who cheat simply becasue it’s free and easy to get and use multiple email addresses.
Even for some hardcore scammers, the money and the additional time and hustle that are needed to log in to a large number of accounts reduce the ROI. They may find it easier to scam elsewhere where the ROI is higher.
I think you have misunderstood something about the costs. That is not an obstacle in modern times. You only need an SMS service for registration, which is included in the $0.30 fee. There are no additional costs. Such telephone numbers are very cheap. Do you think they pay for every text message? No, they’re already included in the $0.30.
You can’t compare that with private individuals who also want to make phone calls or use other services. You need to think globally, phone numbers aren’t expensive everywhere. Some countries give them away in bulk.
Do you think they have high monthly costs? No, not really. Google it yourself. It’s comparable to free email providers. I think you completely underestimate how easy and cheap it is. It’s not friction; it’s their daily business.
That’s why so many users are now saying it’s useless, as many can get the numbers cheaply. Another example: I could get a number for one-time $5 at the petrol station, but it’s only expensive because of additional taxes. That’s without additional costs and with unlimited SMS.
I’m talking about the official legal market, how much cheaper do you think the numbers are on the black market? I agree with you that additional controls are good, but does it help? Google, X/Meta, etc. shouldn’t have any spammers either because phone numbers are monitored, but, as you can see, it doesn’t help.
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