Mr. Landlord’s number is 123-4567. He lives at 123 Fake Street
Mr. Blowero’s number is 987-6543. He also lives at 123 Fake Street.
XYZ Mortgage Company wants to offer Mr. Landlord a second mortgage on 123 Fake Street. They look in the phone directory for Mr. Landlord. If he is listed, they will find his number and possibly his address. It is virtually impossible to find Mr. Blowero’s number by looking up Mr. Landlord’s name in a standard directory.
BUT, if XYZ Mortgage Company were to know the ADDRESS of the property that was sold, and the last name of the buyer, but not his phone number, they would use a reverse directory, look up “123 Fake Street”, and find the phone number 987-6543. Since it is Mr. Landlord’s address, they would mistakenly assume that it is Mr. Landlord’s phone number.
It is virtually impossible to take a standard, non-reversed directory, and find the number 987-6543, if one is looking up Mr. Landlord’s name. The ONLY way to make that mistake is if one is looking it up by ADDRESS FIRST.
I suppose it’s possible that EVERY mortgage company and home-improvement center declined to use the phone companies’ reverse-directory, and created their OWN database of the entire phone directory and cross-referenced it themselves by address, and that the phone company maintains their reverse-directory for no particular reason, and it’s never used by anyone. But then that still wouldn’t explain how, at my previous address (when I wasn’t listed in a reverse-directory), I ALSO had the same address as my (previous) landlord, and he was ALSO the owner of the home, and I never recieved a SINGLE call of that nature.
At some point you just have to invoke Occam’s Razor.
If you still aren’t getting it, then I’m really wondering about you…
But if they used your phone companies’ reverse directory it would be your name they found associated with the number and address. Why would so many use his name if your name was in the directory they used to get the number?
How can that be, when it’s obvious that they had a directory that associated your number and his name? So they query this address, and find your name and your number. Hell, I’d submit that it was the callers that actually used your name that most likely made use of your own phone companies’ most updated directory.
Indeed, I say it’s just as simple to imagine a case where, rather than cross-referencing multiple directories and somehow attaching his name to your number, there was simply an incorrect entry in a standard directory, associating his name with your number. It’s just as feasible.
No matter either way. Even if it was a reverse directory that prompted your first rash of telemarketing calls I would imagine that the total number of calls you’ve received hasn’t been effected to any substantial degree. If you have a published number you’re going to get telemarketing calls. The good aspects of reverse directories outweigh the bad.
The same reason that, even though we all state our names on our answering machines, we still get messages from wrong numbers for people we’ve never heard of. Marketers don’t care if the name on the listing isn’t the one they want. They’re gonna try the number anyway, just in case, because it’s cheap to make phone calls, and if they happen to get a hit, then it’s worth it for them. I had a collection agency call me once and ask for somebody with a completely different first name than mine - didn’t even start with the same letter. They were just going through the phone book and calling EVERYONE with my last name. And that wasn’t even with a matching address.
Please pay attention: they DIDN’T have a directory that associated my number and his name. It’s not obvious at all. In fact, it’s not even true.
I got those calls also, as well as calls that simply asked for “the homeowner”. It was the ones that asked for my landlord that clued me in that something fishy was going on, though.
Which is why I called the phone company, and was told by them that I was listed in their reverse-directory. Are you even reading what I’m writing here?
I’m not arguing against reverse-directories. I only said that I prefer the way GTE does it, where they ASK the customer if he wants to be published in the reverse-directory, rather than the way Pacific Bell does it, where they just do it on the sly.
They’re still being published. We used to use them all the time in our verification efforts (for phone book deliveries). Here’s a list of what you can find by using them:
Resident(s) name, address, zip code, phone number (when available)
first year listed at address (for length of residency)
homeowner indicator
businesses highlighted in bold
wealth code rating for each street
cross streets
type of dwelling
number of residents and businesses per street
multiple residents at an address
new street
new listing
So what the OP is complaining about isn’t new and doesn’t even need Google to accomplish.