I want a "burner" number, but I'm not sure what the best option is, do I buy a crappy phone at Walmart and use that number? What's the bare bottom of the barrel cost for a phone with no mobile data, only SMS?

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kayodelycaon 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

I have an Ultra Mobile eSIM as a second line on my iPhone. Costs $3/mo and you can buy cards to top it up or add a credit card. My primary eSIM is a regular phone plan.

It works surprisingly well. I can easily turn off the second line in Settings without removing it.

I could’ve bought an unlocked phone with cash somewhere and used the SIM in that. They wouldn’t know who I was.

I didn’t do that because it was inconvenient and it wouldn’t be anonymous once I started using it for SMS authentication.

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giancarlostoro 2 days ago | parent [-]

Wait, how did you get it so cheap?

	▲	kayodelycaon 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		https://www.ultramobile.com/paygo/

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typpilol 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

TracFone with minutes at Walmart

If you load it with 10 dollars in minutes, it'll be good forever. But I'm not sure what TracFone has for an inactive policy

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giancarlostoro 2 days ago | parent [-]

Supposedly as long as you keep paying for the plan, the minutes you load into it do not expire...

	▲	typpilol a day ago \| parent [-]
		But tracfones don't have a plan. It's prepaid minute cards only.

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Yeroc 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Any VOIP provider with SMS support should do the job. I personally use voip.ms but there are many.