Megan Ellis / Android Authority
Earlier this month, I received a notification to make a chargeable call on my prepaid SIM card to avoid my number being de-activated. The notification comes whenever I’ve almost gone 90 days without making a chargeable transaction on the network and it serves to keep my number alive. I’ve been able to reliably do this since 2017 when I first switched my mobile plan from a contract to prepaid.
But between switching phones and no longer having a copy of the SMS notification, as well as traveling for a launch event, I forgot to make the call in time. When I woke up the following Monday and remembered to make the call, I was greeted with the grim realization that my number had been deactivated.
While I was eventually able to get my number reactivated, the hours I spent panicking over losing access to a number I’ve had for over 20 years made me realize a few things.
How attached are you to your current phone number? 104 votes Very, I use it for multiple apps and services. 89 % I wouldn't mind changing it if I had to. 8 % Not attached at all. 3 %
So many accounts rely on my phone number
Megan Ellis / Android Authority
At first, when I realized that my number was deactivated, I thought about simply changing my secondary SIM to my main number. After all, I would receive fewer spam calls since this number hadn’t been used during the days of aggressive data harvesting when it was legal to sell lists of phone numbers to marketing services. It’s thanks to a privacy law that went into effect in 2020 in South Africa that the ability for companies to use your number without your consent has been drastically reduced. But by that point, I had been using the same phone number for over 15 years — since I was a teenager.
But then I remembered all the accounts linked to my phone number. It’s easy enough to change your WhatsApp phone number — but then I considered the 2FAs linked to multiple accounts, as well as the logins for multiple services I use. For example, in South Africa, Disney+ is registered to your phone number and requires you to verify sign-ins using a code sent via SMS. My Uber account, as well as various delivery apps, also require my number to log in. Evening switching my Steam Guard device required an SMS one-time password.
After initially being nonchalant, I remembered all the accounts and verifications linked to my phone number.
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