How do you keep your phone number private?

[union_jak]

I recently received an item from eBay and the seller had written my mobile phone number on the package, just underneath my name and address. eBay have confirmed it's against their rules to pass on members phone numbers but this information is visible when you purchase using PayPal.

I can't find anywhere on my PayPal account settings to hide my phone number. I don't want everyone I buy from to obtain my phone number, and I especially don't want them writing it on my packages! I appreciate sellers obviously need my name and address to ship my items, but I do not consent for them to have my phone number.

Anyone help?

[PayPal_Gwen]

Hi @union_jak,

Welcome to the community! I would recommend referring to our PayPal Privacy Statement, specifically "Do We Share Personal Data?". We may share information with another party for transactions when you use the Services, such as other Users, merchants, and their service providers. Only the information necessary to facilitate the transaction, to help other participant(s) resolve disputes and detect and prevent fraud, and aggregated data and performance analytics to help merchants better understand Users and to help merchants enhance Users' experiences will be shared. This could include a phone number.

Hope this helps,

Gwen 

[union_jak · Accepted solution]

Hi Gwen, thank you for your reply, that was most helpful.

I don't consent to PayPal giving out my mobile phone number to third parties so I will remove this from my contact details as it's a breach of GDPR that I am uncomfortable with.

Thanks again!

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@PayPal_Gwen wrote:

Hi @union_jak,

Welcome to the community! I would recommend referring to our PayPal Privacy Statement, specifically "Do We Share Personal Data?". We may share information with another party for transactions when you use the Services, such as other Users, merchants, and their service providers. Only the information necessary to facilitate the transaction, to help other participant(s) resolve disputes and detect and prevent fraud, and aggregated data and performance analytics to help merchants better understand Users and to help merchants enhance Users' experiences will be shared. This could include a phone number.

Hope this helps,

Gwen 

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[10000Kitties]

Paypal is giving out my number to sellers in depop when it's not needed. this isn't a solution

[Choccie]

Yes exactly. Also paypal only allow the use of a phone number to verify identity to access your account and money. What if you lose your phone? I have been using gpay and other more and i am looking to replace paypal completely in the near future.

[22431]

This solution doesn't solve the problem; a phone number is not necessary when making a simple online purchase. The previous user mentioned removing the phone number from your contact details but there does not seem to be any way to do this. I have recently received unsollicited texts from an online retailer after making a purchase. Is there any way to solve this? It is a serious breach of privacy.

[Choccie]

The only way at present would be to use a burner phone (cheap store bought phone) that you just use for people like Paypal who ignore data protection laws.

[robatino]

My Citi credit card website allows me to create virtual card numbers, so I will be using that from now on to keep my credit card info hidden from merchants. PayPal is no longer an option, due to their treatment of phone numbers, and the fact that they require one. I also just discovered that they now require that any newly added phone number must be verified with a text or phone call, so it's impossible to give them a fake one (which I was able to do 3 years ago, since they didn't verify phone numbers then). Just today, I was blocked from accessing my PayPal account until I gave a verified mobile number. Now that it's there, it's impossible to remove, it can only be replaced with another verified one.