Scary: Sites are selling out your cell phone data to anyone

There’s been a lot of controversy over cell phone directories and privacy. But if you’re willing to pay a fee - as little as $9.95 - you can get ownership, address and full information on ownership of cell phone numbers from a whole bunch of online services.

Take a site called ReverseMobile.com for example. It offers unlimited reverse phone searches for as little as $9.95. The site sells full memberships at $49.95 but if you click to leave, you get a pop-up offering the cut rate deal.

Most of the sites try to lure you in with what looks like a freebie check.

At ReverseMobile, you get a form to fill in to look up a number. You think it’s free. But when you fill it in you get a return telling you the region where the phone is listed and then noting that details are “available.” Available if you pay the fee, of course.

So what happens if you pay? I ran my own number and opted to buy the $14.95 full phone report. But when I went to actually pay for it at checkout, the price had gone up to $19.90.

Okay. I bit. For research, I paid the fee. It led me to an outfit known as Complete Investigative Services. It noted I had $15 in my account, even though I just paid $19.90. I clicked the reverse cellphone link and instead of a full report, I got a search result that listed my name, cellphone carrier (it was wrong.. it claimed I was on Sprint, instead I’m on AT&T) and the possible city where I live (it listed one a few miles away.)

Still, it indeed returned my name. Which is I guess why someone would use such a service. The site offered other for pay services. I could just run my name and (for $15) it would provide my phone numbers. Or I could order a “comprehensive background check” on a name… also for $15.

So… bottom line… sites like ReverseMobile work. They indeed do provide info not normally available. All you need to be able to do is spend some money.

I just want to know why the difference between the $14.95 fee that they first offered, and the $19.95 fee they charged me for my report.