When a mobile number could fetch you a quick buck

Recently, David, a media professional, received a text message offering ₹30,000 for his Airtel number, which he has been using for over a decade. Similar enticing offers for mobile phone numbers, especially from old series, are being made without the knowledge of service providers. Officially, numbers surrendered by a user go to the common number pool of the service providers who alone have the right to reassign them,” said a technical official of BSNL. “A person using the in-demand mobile number could surrender it and alert the buyer who could then straight away request for it. Since the service providers are open to assigning available numbers upon request, he may get hold of it quite easily while the monetary transaction involved may go undetected,” said TERM sources.