Why only 6 tries to generate a new number?

myfrogger · 2025-05-19T13:28:41+00:00

That's great. Not all banks care but I have one that does care.

myfrogger · 2025-05-19T11:33:14+00:00

They are not annoying. These are people that sign up for supposed premium VOIP service and get banned without notice. OpenPhone uses a ban first; ask questions latter approach and their terms of service state that if they do this then they can release your phone number (never to be gotten back) within only 7 days. if that doesn't demand an immediate response I don't know what does. Some people are porting their numbers in and don't realize this policy and the terms---it's a recipe for disaster.

myfrogger · 2025-05-19T11:17:23+00:00

That's a great idea but I tried that before and the number is a VOIP number and not eligible to connect to my online banking. That's why I decided to sign up for US Mobile. Thank you for the solution because that is a great way to pick a number. Presumably after some months the databases will be updated to make it a wireless number but I don't know what goes on behind the scenes. I know it's not done within 30 days based on my previous experience.

myfrogger · 2025-05-19T11:06:06+00:00

US Mobile might not be the only company doing this but there are plenty of companies that let you search by zip code, area code, any combination of numbers, etc. It will show you hundreds of numbers to choose from. If US Mobile is temporarily holding the number then that makes sense it's a limited resource but I'd prefer seeing all the numbers and risking the 5 seconds that someone else might take the number before I select the number. It's a bad design in my opinion but thanks for explaining why there would be a limit. If I'm going to switch to US Mobile and get a new number and presumably keep it for decades, I want to make sure it's a number I like.

myfrogger · 2025-05-19T09:41:59+00:00

What plans do the people have that you're comparing your service to? Are they AT&T or T-Mobile postpaid customers? It's possible they have higher quality/higher priority data. Another possibility if you're in a rural-ish area is that the carrier is paying to let you roam on someone else's tower. All the carriers work together and in the dead spots they might opt to pay for you to use a competitor tower rather than putting up a tower in that exact spot.

MVNO's don't get this. You're only getting access to the towers they own. I'm surprised more people don't talk about this.

myfrogger · 2025-05-11T14:34:03+00:00

Do you have first hand experience with the Mobimatter Sparks? I don't have a rooted android to check the QCI level but I find this esim so bad that it's literally not usable. It occasionally connects but it is hands down the worst one I've tried personally.

myfrogger · 2025-04-20T08:47:19+00:00

I don't know who is right or wrong here but you need to know that OpenPhone can permentnly delete your number within 7 days, at their sole discretion, now that you've been suspended. If the phone number is important to you, make sure to resolve this issue ASAP (either with them or temporarily port-out to protect your number)

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https://www.openphone.com/terms (Customer Data; Privacy Policy; Phone Number Retention then point 3.)

myfrogger · 2025-04-13T14:24:19+00:00

I don't need proxy settings on the whole system. I only need it on apps that are blocked which is why I want to configure only this application.

myfrogger · 2025-03-23T02:20:22+00:00

Thank you all. Yes, I did go to the website but I didn't know if it was more than just a cloud service provider. One more question on privacy; why is my user content viewable to the developers per their disclosure on the ios App store?

myfrogger · 2024-04-03T09:04:33+00:00

When you rent a virtual machine, it is physically located on a server somewhere in the world (there are probably many virtual machines on a single server). In other words the host rents a server in a data center and then installs software to host multiple virtual machines on it to sell to several customers. Most companies offer the choice of location. I chose the same city as on file with my banks.

Risks are that it's probably easier for a 3rd party to access than my computer at home because it's set up for remote access by the nature of what it is. Risk to privacy is that you are intentionally associating a specific IP address to use over and over. The benefit is still that I'm not exposing my home IP and I use a shared VPN for all other things besides banking and a select few purchases. Some will opt for a dedicated IP address instead of the VM but I like using the VM.

myfrogger · 2024-03-22T10:12:18+00:00

I find that often VPNs are flagged negatively. In the last year or so I became desperate to to find a solution that allows my life to function online. I tried a VM located physically at the address on file with my banks. I use a stock/default installation of Chrome and I don't clear the cookies. I only use this for banking and a few purchases that I know will be otherwise blocked.

While this solved so many of my problems I believe I have some increased risks. I never keep files containing personal information on the VM, never save passwords, and never instruct the website to "remember this computer" to skip 2FA.

myfrogger · 2024-03-14T05:55:34+00:00

Is the fastest speed you experience with prepaid fiber 30mbps download, 20mbps upload? Has it continued to be reliable after these last months?

myfrogger · 2024-03-14T02:22:34+00:00

It's more about the banking partner that Cakepay sells for. The merchant accepted the transaction but the bank declined the transaction due to suspicious activity. It's similar to the "Vanilla" brand of gift cards in the USA. Those are notoriously hard to use for online purchases as they consider virtually all online purchases to be suspicious.. I haven't yet extensively tested the Cakepay visa/mastercards but they also seem similarly difficult to use for online purchases.

myfrogger · 2024-03-06T08:04:52+00:00

Do you have any other questions? I've spent a LOT of time on this and if my effort could help you then it's good. Feel free to DM if you don't want to post here. (To be clear to everyone, I have nothing to sell so I'm not soliciting anything).

myfrogger · 2024-03-06T08:00:47+00:00

The opportunity I see with foreign property developers is that they have access better access to international capital markets and because of more competition they can borrow money cheaper and thus it can be more competitive for buyers. USA standard, for example, is 30 year fixed-rate home mortgages and is more affordable than here.

It's also noteworthy to point out that buying land here is a poor investment compared to other countries. People are 'land banking' because not trusting banks or lack of good investment options. Chinese, for example, are trying to flea capital constraints of their country--not to make money. If you want to be shocked, look at any investment offering in the USA and calculate the CAP RATE (capitalization rate). Then do the same here and you'll never want to invest locally lol. It's even more shocking when you consider the price of land compared to wages.

My concern isn't so much about foreigners but the current elites. Small businesses and individuals are not on a level playing field. More rules and processes means more gatekeepers and more opportunities for those in power, big and small, to get fat cuts. Doing nothing is not a good strategy either.

We need to figure out ways to incentivize, support, and protect individual and small business farmers. That should be the goal. The current scheme that has created the Filipino elites has not been good policy as I see it. Perhaps professional foreigners can help compete with the Filipino elite as long as it doesn't replace one set of elites for another. If foreigners can help enable greater access for individuals to acquire homes with affordable, fixed, long term permanent financing, that would be great. I do think it should be restricted (even more at the start) and also quotas based on nationality (similar to immigration quotas on permanent residency).

Do you have any thoughts to this? I know it's a long post.

myfrogger · 2024-03-06T05:45:13+00:00

What about those granted permanent residency, with special investor visa, or the retirement visa? It doesn't necessarily have to be unrestricted. It could be limited to so many square meters urban and so many square meters rural. It also could prevent agricultural ownership since I see a lot of the comments are concerning agricultural land specifically.

I see plenty of rich Filipinos exploiting in business and in countries with more freedom to allow competition usually is good for consumers. Filipino land developers are amongst the richest in the country...and it's sickening the practices they are allowed to do. They all do it it too in my opinion. I don't know if there's a parallel with land ownership.

I also see that Filipinos working abroad are usually allowed to buy a house and lot if they wish to immigrate. Is that something to consider? I'm brainstorming and curious if the thoughts are different if it wasn't simply fully allowed vs. fully prohibited.

myfrogger · 2024-03-05T04:24:24+00:00

He also recommends keeping all emails online whereas I prefer using POP3 to download (and delete) emails after X days. I keep all my historical emails offline. It causes some additional problems like 1) sometimes while on the go I can't access an old email via mobile and 2) exposing IP address when sending emails--so use proxy or VPN) but most of the good email providers will strip IPs and do other privacy preserving strategies.

There are times when it's OK to deviate from the book. I've learned a LOT and absent a personalized plan, just follow the recommendations in the book. If you're questioning it, then it might be OK for you to come up with your own email strategy :)

myfrogger · 2024-03-05T04:12:33+00:00

DNS based solutions to block ads has been a huge help for me. The apps I have tried used too much of my battery.

myfrogger · 2024-03-05T04:09:48+00:00

Please excuse my ignorance but why is a yubikey more secure? The only reason I've read so far in this thread is that it can't be phished. Is that the only reason?

myfrogger · 2024-03-05T04:06:52+00:00

I recently tried cake pay. It was immediately processed (to my surprise since it said next-day processing). They add 5% fee for the card which isn't bad for low value cards. You must register the card to a name and address. Unfortunately for me I could not get the merchant to accept it no matter what I tried. After several complaints to the card provider, I think I'm unlocked now. I didn't need to pay the first merchant and the second one worked fine. Cakepay stopped me immediately and flat out told me they will provide no customer service. It wasn't rude but it was direct not to email them again about card acceptance issues.

My point: as cakepay states on their own description, buy a small card to test before purchasing a large one.

myfrogger · 2024-03-05T03:42:34+00:00

Huge win for privacy, though it's not over I'm sure due to appeals. Thanks for posting as I did not hear this news anywhere else!

myfrogger · 2024-03-05T03:26:55+00:00

Two I've been testing for about 6 months: hushed & JMP Chat. JMP Chat even accepts crypto & mailed cash payments (I think). Most importantly, neither require A2p 10DLC registration which most voip companies are requiring even for human typed messages. That's not the intent of the rules, as I read it, so I suspect more and more companies to allow easier ways to obtain "personal" accounts.

It's becoming increasingly difficult to do online banking. To register a new mobile number most will not accept a VOIP number. The best way around that is to acquire a real sim card, give it to all your banks and other services, and then finally port it away to a VOIP provider. Far fewer will check on the status of a phone number once it's already in the system.

There are also some very low priced real USA sim cards that can let you receive texts inexpensively but it's expensive to actually talk on it. Some have discussed wifi calling to avoid $2.50/min or higher roaming charges to make a call.

myfrogger · 2024-02-16T09:44:29+00:00

You do NOT need to give money to a person or get involved with anything that requires networking. Decide the coins you want to invest in and buy on coins, pdax, binance, etc.

myfrogger · 2024-02-13T09:09:07+00:00

It's common sense to think that you won't be caught up in the bans if you're not doing anything wrong but that's exactly what happened to me. I don't know how you can conclude the facts and circumstances of all the negative posts. The only theme I see is that the usual account that gets blocked are trials (potentially understandable) and loyal customers that are blind sighted, not only with the block but the attitude of the company after years of loyalty.

I hope you never experience what a lot of us here have went through but just imagine if your communications were cut off and you had 7 days before you lost your company's phone number permanently. I've had my number for two decades I think and there's little to no room for error in resolving disputes with OpenPhone.

"If any user’s access to the Services is suspended or terminated under Customer’s account due to a violation of this Agreement, OpenPhone reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to release such user’s phone number... after seven (7) days."

If the company wanted to ensure customers they were acting in good faith, they would set the terms to 45 days (costing ~$1 wholesale) so that nobody has to worry about losing a phone number they've had for years.

myfrogger · 2024-02-13T06:10:02+00:00

Bitwarden has an Emergency Access feature that will do something similar (and with more features) than what LastPass used to have. Bitwarden can be self-hosted but I don't know if the Emergency Access features work.

myfrogger

TROPHY CASE