Cell number on a YP ad. Good idea?
December 8, 2011 11:53 AM Subscribe
Would adding a "text me at..." phone number on a Yellow Pages ad lead to the phone number being text-spammed and, possibly, dumped-on by third-party scam-charges?
Asking for a client...
They utilize Yellow Pages ads quite a bit The owner has the idea to add one of their field person's cell numbers to the ads, ostensibly for their targets to send a contact text message. They are debating whether this is a good idea or not.
Will they be opening their field person's cell number to spamming and unauthorized third-party billings? Cramming? One person says they heard about texting/cell phone scams on Craigslist. I'm clueless about this.
How might I'd advise them on this?
Asking for a client...
They utilize Yellow Pages ads quite a bit The owner has the idea to add one of their field person's cell numbers to the ads, ostensibly for their targets to send a contact text message. They are debating whether this is a good idea or not.
Will they be opening their field person's cell number to spamming and unauthorized third-party billings? Cramming? One person says they heard about texting/cell phone scams on Craigslist. I'm clueless about this.
How might I'd advise them on this?
Response by poster: Ah. I forgot about Google Voice. They could publish a GV number and have that forward to the field person's phone. Thanks!
posted by Thorzdad at 12:06 PM on December 8, 2011
posted by Thorzdad at 12:06 PM on December 8, 2011
Response by poster: At least, I think so. Can a GV number receive a text message, then forward that text to, say, an ATT number?
I know you can do that with voice. Not sure about text.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:09 PM on December 8, 2011
I know you can do that with voice. Not sure about text.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:09 PM on December 8, 2011
Yes, works fine. Still no ability to handle MMS, although that should happen in the future (it is apparently working in the special relationship between GV and Sprint).
posted by shinynewnick at 1:14 PM on December 8, 2011
posted by shinynewnick at 1:14 PM on December 8, 2011
I don't think there's anyway you can NOT receive texts from Google Voice if you have a forwarding number. Sometimes I don't want them to show up on my phone, just on the web interface, but I can't figure out how to turn them off without killing the voice forwarding part. So, you may get some unwanted texts on the phone even with a GV number.
posted by desjardins at 4:02 PM on December 8, 2011
posted by desjardins at 4:02 PM on December 8, 2011
desjardins, you can indeed opt not to have texts delivered to a mobile phone. In the Settings page, in the 'Phones' tab, there's a checkbox for "Receive text messages on this phone". (Although I don't actually receive many texts, so it's possible that the feature's broken and I just haven't noticed.)
posted by yuwtze at 4:20 PM on December 8, 2011
posted by yuwtze at 4:20 PM on December 8, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 11:59 AM on December 8, 2011 [1 favorite]