Chikka Reveals the Previous Owner of Your Number

Posted on June 7th, 2010. Written by Rico.

Having registered my relatively new phone number with Chikka, I discovered that the free SMS service can tell you the previous owner of your number.

People cancel plans left and right, so it’s no surprise telcos recycle unused numbers by giving them to new customers. That’s why I received some spam right after I activated my new number, and apparently why Chikka maintains that the previous owner of my number is a certain R.C.

Definitely Chikka can’t do anything about this, unless they figure out a way to detect when a new person’s using a recycled number. So, dear readers, before you drop that postpaid or prepaid account, make sure you clear everything associated with it! A particularly vulnerable area are websites that use your about-to-be-given-up number as your username.

Yet another reason to stay aware of your online profile, and what you share with websites. Remember, dear readers, using a pseudonym is a simple matter of typing in! And the less personal info you share, the better.