My new phone number from AU is old phone number from other people

recently signed up for a phone plan. but the number i received is an old phone number. tried registering paypay and the app said the phone number is already registered. is this normal?

6 comments
  1. the numbers are often recycled yeah. not sure if there’s a specific time period before it happens. you might ask au to reissue the number maybe.

  2. Contact PayPay support and tell them someone else appears to have registered your phone number.

  3. If that is true that AU recycles numbers that were used so recently, that has to be a huge security risk.

  4. Yeah, my old phone number got reused and I became my own friend on Line. That was weird until I realised what had happened.

  5. I’ve no idea about how any of this works, but that sounds like a fantastic opportunity for hoody wearing definitely-foreigner man hackers to do the identity theft of a crime.

    You already have the “username” of the other person’s account. All you need to do now is figure out their password. Hopefully the 2FA uses text messages, so no problem there. In theory, of course.

  6. Sure, phone numbers are often recycled. With mobiles having been in use in Japan for over 30 years, it is unlikely that there are any phone numbers that *haven’t* been used at least once.

    If you’re having problems with a number that has been used too recently (such as your PayPay problem), you should go and ask for a new number. Never had to do this, but it should be possible.

Leave a Reply
You May Also Like