It may seem safe enough to post your phone number online when you think you are on a private or secure site. Though this might be the best place, you can never assume that your number is safe. It would take a lot for a person to search the Internet to grab phone numbers for whatever their reasons may be, but this is not something that is done by hand. If you have posted your number, you have put it out there will it may be found. It might take a while, but your number could very easily become public information.
If you don’t know a lot about the Internet, you may be surprised at what some will do to find and sell your personal information. There is a big market for this, and it can be used for calling lists, scams, and even identity theft. You may be shocked to see how little information is needed when someone wants to steal your identity to use your good credit for their own gain. This means that placing your number, and other information, online is almost an open invitation to scam you out of your hard earned money.
There are some people out there that know a lot about the Internet and a lot about programming computers. They can use what are called bots to scan the Internet for certain types of information. They can set a bot to find email addresses, phone numbers, and other bits of personal information. They just write the program, set it to work, and sit back to wait for whatever that bot comes up with. It doesn’t take long for them to get what they need.
Web bots or ’scrapping’ is not always about finding your number, but that can be a side effect. These bots will get information, mostly web content, and then use it on a site that is meant to draw in traffic and make money though various ad programs. Your number may end up in that scrapped content and will be even more visible on the web. Your very best bet it to keep your number off of the Internet entirely, and to use email address when you must leave contact information.