Is possible (and legal) to obtain a mobile phone numbers database?

I CAN help you if you need web scraping services to collect phone numbers (or any other kind of data) that is voluntarily published on the internet by their owners. For example I made a script that input MCST from 0001 to 4600 in bca.gov.sg enquiry and created Condo Database with Management Corporations, an Excel file that include about 4000 phone numbers of managing agents. Not many numbers, but very valuable in telemarketing for certain service providers.

I CANNOT help you if you need phone numbers of home owners, car owners or other types of personal phone numbers. Homeowners associations does have phone numbers of some owners (is a good practice to give your contact info to be announced in case there is a problem in your home while you are away), car insurance companies also have phone numbers of their clients, but what makes you to think that they would give their database to you or potential competitors? Also, distributing / selling phone numbers without owner consent is ILLEGAL all over the world. In Singapore you can be fined up to $10,000 or up to 12 months of jail according pdpc.gov.sg.

Not-so-legal ways to get database of (personal) mobile phone numbers

Fake contests that require you to enter phone number: if you are a long-time internet user you may have seen on various websites some ads “you won an iPhone” who ask you to take a simple quiz, then ask you to input your phone number to enter in a draw (most likely a fake contest where nobody wins anything). Other websites offer a “free IQ test” and after you answer all questions, it ask you to input your phone number to receive the results, I don’t know if you actually receive results because didn’t tried. These websites do collect phone numbers of naive people and eventually sell them illegally. If you are looking to buy a mobile phone numbers database to advertise food, chewing gum, or anything else with many consumers, you can contact this type of websites.

Cookie collector: In 2017 been contacted by a marketing company who pay websites to add a cookie and send them user information (email, phone number, etc), offered to pay me too but my website do not have a registration feature. Read our chat.

This is another dirty way to collect people’s emails and phone numbers under a notification “I accept cookies”. That company was not selling database itself, but was offering services such as SMS blast to the numbers they collected. So if you want to advertise a service via SMS marketing you can try to contact such kind of marketing company.

Some mobile app developers sell phone numbers of their users: in September 2018 someone has posted this spammy comment and talking with him I realized that he is mobile app developer and have phone numbers of people who are using their applications (only number, NO age, gender, location, job or anything else to filter by). You can contact him or any other mobile app developer.

In 2019 an Indian offered to sell me a database of 15,000 phone numbers, but never explained who are these numbers belonging to. If he got them in one of above ways, we can assume that most numbers belong to dumb teenagers so have no value in business.

If you want to market products to company owners in certain industry, none of above are efficient for you.

First strange email

Since 2016 I offer for sale a database of mobile phones DEVICES with their specifications, but a couple of people do not understand this and message me to ask dumb things such as phone NUMBERS database.

A visitor of that page sent me an email which after few replies I realized that he was NOT looking for phone devices, but phone numbers. I feel surprised to see people making such confusion.

Customer:
Hi Teoalida!
I’m looking for phone lists to market some products. Any chance we can work together?

Teoalida:
I already have phone database and I guess that you saw it since you sent this email. But I can also work for you if you want to change something in database or make new databases!

Customer:
Yes! I saw a couple samples on your site. Im looking for mobile phone databases of people interested in real estate or looking to buy real estate. Do you have them?

Teoalida:
I create database in many fields but phones and real estate cannot mix… what do you mean???
May I know which pages of my website have you opened?

Customer:
I went through the list of your databases. What i am interested in is a list of mobile phone numbers of people living in a certain area. Or really just mobile phone numbers of any group of people in Singapore. Would this be data that you keep?

Teoalida:
LOL…. so you’re from Singapore?
Mobile Phone database is about phones as products sold worldwide and not phone numbers in certain area. You’re 3rd person I think who ask about phone numbers (other 2 asking about flat owners and car owners), may I know how do you EXPECT someone to be able to collect them and if is LEGAL what we are doing?

Second strange email

Customer:
Hi there, I am wondering whether do you have serangoon hdb database (in term of contacts) thank you Merry xmas and Happy new year

Teoalida:
I have all towns in HDB blocks databases and you can buy each town individually or whole Singapore with discount… what do you mean “in terms of contacts” ????

Customer:
Hi ,
Sorry I mean their handphone no..
Thanks

Teoalida:
Let me guess… you want to spam SMS to promote your agent services?
I have phone numbers of my local friends, few dozens of them… if I give you these numbers does it helps you? Also do you think that is legal to give friends phone number without their permission?
Tell me HOW DO YOU THINK that I would be able to collect phone numbers of large amount of people?

Customer:
Hi,
Thank you for your prompt reply.
Wish you happy new year!
God bless.

I sent him 1 more message and he never replied, never answered my questions. Probably ashamed of his request.
Few months earlier I told to someone about people looking for mobile phone numbers and he told me that is ILLEGAL

(3:53:52 PM) Visitor 41318597: By the way, I was from a very big company.. **************.. So I believe my words does carry it’s weight..
(3:54:15 PM) Visitor 41318597: Anyway.. The main purpose of any company is to make money..
(3:54:47 PM) Visitor 41318597: and the main purpose of their R&D department is to help give the company some edge that would make it more money..
(3:55:17 PM) Visitor 41318597: Usually the first step is data collection… Which is what you are doing..
(3:55:26 PM) Teoalida: but what kind of data do you collect?
(3:55:33 PM) Teoalida: have you seen how I wrote in About me…. “data mining”
(3:56:15 PM) Teoalida: someone asked me for a database of flat owners’ phone numbers… is this possible?
(3:56:15 PM) Visitor 41318597: I have not yet gone through your whole website, so unfortunately I have not read that yet.. But will do soon..
(3:56:51 PM) Visitor 41318597: Hmmm.. Database of flat owner’s phone number is a bit tricky..
(3:58:00 PM) Visitor 41318597: This is because:
1) I’m not sure where you’re going to get them
2) Phone numbers are kind of private information that you could only have if the owner gave it to you.. Else, you should not be selling such information. May get into trouble..
(3:58:21 PM) Visitor 41318597: They are protected by the PDPA.. (Personal Data Protection Act)
(3:58:46 PM) Teoalida: I told him that even if can be collected, would be illegal to sell
(3:58:59 PM) Visitor 41318597: Even if you have such data.. Maybe your friend’s number or such, you cannot sell or distribute without their permission.
(3:59:07 PM) Visitor 41318597: You’re right.. That is illegal..

Strange indian not understanding what I am selling

Country: India
Page URL: https://www.teoalida.com/database/phones/

Chat started on Sunday, September 16, 2018 9:02:41 PM

(9:02:41 PM) *** Visitor 78299220 has joined the chat ***
(9:02:43 PM) Teoalida (site owner): Hi there… are you looking for a specific database? you are welcome for a chat!
(9:03:56 PM) Visitor 78299220: Can you plse provide me data of insurance co.
(9:04:10 PM) *** Teoalida has joined the chat ***
(9:04:15 PM) Teoalida: what insurance companies?
(9:04:16 PM) Visitor 78299220: Such as lic
(9:04:19 PM) Teoalida: this database is about mobile phone devices
(9:04:31 PM) Teoalida: but I can create a custom database for you via web scraping
(9:04:37 PM) Teoalida: www.teoalida.com/database/webscraping
(9:04:43 PM) Visitor 78299220: Customer database
(9:05:42 PM) Visitor 78299220: I need customer name mobile no city and policy holder
(9:05:59 PM) Teoalida: LOL
(9:06:09 PM) Visitor 78299220: Database of utter pradesh
(9:06:19 PM) Teoalida: from your 1st message I though that you want a list of companies in insurance
(9:06:36 PM) Visitor 78299220: No
(9:06:42 PM) Teoalida: ask the insurance company to share with you their customers data
(9:07:15 PM) Teoalida: do you really think that they will disclose their data to third-party people and potential competitors?
(9:07:34 PM) Visitor 78299220: No
(9:07:54 PM) Visitor 78299220: I was just asked if you can provide me
(9:07:58 PM) Teoalida: do you realize that what do you ask is off my website topic?
(9:08:10 PM) Visitor 78299220: Ok
(9:08:14 PM) Visitor 78299220: Thanks
(9:08:17 PM) Teoalida: leave an email address
(9:08:29 PM) Teoalida: I would like to ask you later if you found anyone to provide you
(9:08:35 PM) Teoalida: because I DON’T believe that you will ever find
(9:09:00 PM) *** Visitor 78299220 has left ***

Another one!

Country: Singapore
Page URL: https://www.teoalida.com/database/webscraping/

Chat started on Wednesday, May 29, 2019 11:05:37 AM

(11:05:37 AM) *** Visitor 36739428 has joined the chat ***
(11:05:39 AM) Teoalida (site owner): Hello visitor from Singapore, are you looking for a specific database? Let me know if I can help you!
(11:06:03 AM) Visitor 36739428: yes
(11:06:24 AM) *** Teoalida has joined the chat ***
(11:06:25 AM) Teoalida: 🙂
(11:06:48 AM) Visitor 36739428: You have Singapore database?
(11:07:06 AM) Teoalida: I have many databases for Singapore, which one do you want?
(11:07:19 AM) Visitor 36739428: What do yo have ?
(11:07:20 AM) Teoalida: HDB, condo, resale prices, cars, etc….?
(11:07:40 AM) Teoalida: www.teoalida.com/databases
(11:09:15 AM) Visitor 36739428: Consumer database
(11:10:13 AM) Teoalida: what do you mean with consumer?
(11:10:36 AM) Visitor 36739428: Human, not cars or condos etc
(11:11:56 AM) Teoalida: I hope that you don’t need population names and addresses, this is against https://www.pdpc.gov.sg/Organisations/Enforcement-Matters/Personal-Data-Protection-Breaches
(11:13:39 AM) Visitor 36739428: Cannot do scraping?
(11:13:59 AM) Teoalida: scraping from where? provide me a link to a website having required data
(11:14:20 AM) Visitor 36739428: I don’t know
(11:16:02 AM) Teoalida: You remind me about a funny case… an Indian who asked for “singapore database” without referring what database, and after few min I realized that he was also looking for database of people names and phone numbers and he said “if you don’t sell Singapore database please remove keywords so you don’t waste anyone else time as you wasted mine”
(11:16:46 AM) Teoalida: I feel sad for not giving him link to https://www.teoalida.com/databases/ BEFORE he quit chat so he can see that I DO sell databases for Singapore …. buildings and cars, so I cannot remove keyword “database”
(11:17:13 AM) Teoalida: I can’t find his chatlog anymore
(11:17:18 AM) Teoalida: however what made him (and you too) to ask about database of people in a website focusing on architecture and real estate?
(11:18:45 AM) Visitor 36739428: I need database to market products and services, emails also can
(11:19:45 AM) Teoalida: I had few more people who asked for “database of HDB owners”, most likely agents to spam SMS
(11:20:08 AM) Visitor 36739428: No spamming
(11:20:25 AM) Teoalida: but you saying “singapore database” is too vague
(11:20:35 AM) Teoalida: see this article https://www.teoalida.com/database/phonenumbers/
(11:56:52 AM) *** Visitor 36739428 has left ***