In my country we have to activate prepaid debit cards by SMS, meaning that the prepaid cards are tied to our real life identity via our phone numbers.
Prepaid SIM cards need to be registered and tied to your SSN here, so a prepaid SIM would not work to get around this problem.
You might think I live in some authoritarian state or something but I actually live in Norway. In general life is good but I find these things disconcerting :(
I guess it might be doable to use one of those online services that will send and receive SMS on your behalf without registering any personal information. But I didn’t try that and for all I know it could be that SMS from such numbers would be rejected or flagged by the bank.
Getting a sim card using social engineering is easier and safer. You go into shopping street in front of a cell phone shop, explain you're a foreigner in distress.
"Sorry to disturb you, but could you please help? I just lost my phone. I urgently need to be reachable for {"my ill grandmother", "my biggest client"}. I have money on me, and I already bought a new phone, but I left my id at the hotel in $next_city, and the shop won't sell me a sim card without it. I'm desperate! Could you please help me out and get me a 20€ prepaid card?"
Give it 10 minutes tops and you'll have your sim...
Prepaid SIM cards need to be registered and tied to your SSN here, so a prepaid SIM would not work to get around this problem.
You might think I live in some authoritarian state or something but I actually live in Norway. In general life is good but I find these things disconcerting :(
I guess it might be doable to use one of those online services that will send and receive SMS on your behalf without registering any personal information. But I didn’t try that and for all I know it could be that SMS from such numbers would be rejected or flagged by the bank.
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