The original post: /r/privacy by /u/InfamousVillage63 on 2024-12-17 23:05:24.

I recently set up 2 factor authentication for my Yahoo account and my Microsoft account, giving them my phone number which they haven’t had before, and within a day, I started getting 5 spam calls a day, every day, when I used to maybe get 1 or 2 every week.

Either this is the craziest coincidence ever, or Yahoo/Microsoft IMMEDIATELY sold my phone number out to the spammers. I’m waiting to get any spam texts, because my past spam texts kept referring to some random person that I wasn’t which was funny, but if they start suddenly using my name, then I’ll know it had to be one of those two corporations selling my info.

If it IS them selling stuff, should I even bother with 2 factor authentication in the future, or just use a strong password and not give any of these corporations my phone number for privacy (and sanity) reasons?

(Also I’m bad at titles oops)