[verisimilitude]

Am I the only one who never gives out their real phone number? I give the same fake one to every single business that asks for it, including CC verification stuff on websites. Never had a problem, and really seems to cut down on junk calls...

[lotsofpulp]

And so if a hotel is overbooked, or otherwise has an issue that would be better addressed prior to arrival, they have no way of contacting you?

[scarface74]

I stay in a lot of hotels. I’ve never once been called. They will send an email to my “hide my email” protected email address or once I am 24 hours from check in or during my stay, I communicate with them via chat on the app.

On the other hand, I really don’t have a problem giving my real number to hotels, airlines or any other business that I deal with regularly.

[ceejayoz]

Fake-fake, or Google Voice-fake?

I'd be worried about being locked out at some point; I get asked to confirm I'm me via phone/SMS fairly regularly.

[spydum]

I find many companies rejecting Google voice numbers, calling them VoIP services (which is kind of funny, most mobile is VoIP these days)

[reaperducer]

Never had a problem

I do the same thing as you. But it's worth noting that you don't know that you've never had a problem, since nobody can contact you about one.

I've only had problems that I know of three times. Once when a purchase from Ohio got mangled in shipping and returned to the company. It tried to contact me to let me know there was a delay, and when it couldn't get in touch with me, it put the order on hold. I found out about it when I called a couple of weeks later to ask what happened to my order.

Once when something I ordered from overseas had trouble getting through customs. Again, I had to call to find out what happened.

And once when I made a hotel reservation in Los Angeles. The hotel called to let me know that the upgrade I requested was available, and when it couldn't get me by phone it believed the transaction to be fraudulent and cancelled my reservation.

[aliqot]

if you use the same fake one, then that is your number, its just pseudonymous. It does not matter what the info is, if it is the same often, it'll build a pattern on you.

[ceejayoz]

Sure, but no one's gonna convincingly call you on it and say "hi I'm Hilton customer service, reaching out about your stay in LA on 9/17".

[coremoff]

does make me wonder about throwaway accounts (on reddit, for example); I wonder how many people regularly create them, but use predictable patterns doing so...

[tootie]

I used to do this. Put a fake name and tel. Then I missed some important messages and had to explain what happened to customer service.

[Turing_Machine]

I have a burner phone that I never answer... only used for getting SMS confirmations and the like, and on silent or turned off altogether when I'm not expecting one.