I received a telespam today from someone identifying herself as being with Verizon. She asked if I was the person in charge of the RCN account. Well, yes, my phone comes from RCN. How does Verizon know this though? Telephone accounts are customer proprietary network information (CPNI), aren't they? RCN isn't selling its customer lists to its competitors. The phone line in question is provided off of RCN's cable, not leased Verizon loops. It is not a number ported from Verizon; RCN owns both the thousands-block and the A-block of the NPA-NXX. Thus the number doesn't even need to appear in the NPAC number portability database. About the only way they could sort of legally know about it is because it is listed, and if they checked NPAC and didn't see it, they'd know it belonged to the A-block holder. But it's not kosher to use NPAC data for marketing. Carriers are only supposed to use their caches of it for directing calls.
So I asked her how she knew I used RCN. First she lied that it was really Verizon's line. This is a standard telesleaze trick of theirs, to claim that facilities-based CLECs are actually resellers. I said that it wasn't, then she said it was Verizon's turf and therefore they knew. Then she made some kind if insulting remark that I'm pretending to know a lot but don't; then she hung up. Little does she know that I professionally deliver expert witness work against ILECs!
Just to top it off, the Caller ID was "Name Unavailable" from "1-987-654-3210". Yeah, right. I wonder if that violates any truth in Caller ID laws.