I tried to sign up to a European service that requires a phone number, and I was confident that I could use SMSPool to bypass that, so that I wouldn’t have to share my real phone number.
To my utter surprise, when it came down to verifying my number (the one from SMSPool), the service required that I call them with said number, which of course I couldn’t do.
I contacted SMSPool Support and from what I understand, they currently don’t support calls for said service.
Are there any alternatives to SMSPool that support phone verification via calls and accepts anonymous payments (cash or Monero)?
JMP.chat is what will most likely work for you. You can only buy it for a month or two and get your account(s) verified if you’d like. Or you can keep using it. It’s a cool service.
I see they only have numbers for the US & Canada. I also don’t see anything on their website about accepting Monero or cash. Do you know if they do? I don’t want to compromise my privacy. Lastly, do they refund you like SMSPool if verification doesn’t work?
Yes. Been using it for months. It works well for 99% of things for which you need such a service.
They accept BTC. It’s best to use Cheogram on Android to sign up with Snikket and use their service. But you can and should be able to use any XMPP client.
Get some BTC without KYC and you’ll be fine. But if this itself is too much for your threat model and XMR is absolutely necessary for you, then I’d say some of the same things I said in my earlier comments in one of your other posts - you have bigger issues to deal with and would likely need professional help being that private for your threat model. FYI, I’m not being snarky here so please don’t read it as such. Just saying what I think. Nothing more is to be inferred from it.
Yes, there should be a refund button right next to your order.
I hear you, but I respectfully disagree. I am not a cryptocurrency expert, in fact I am a total newbie. However, I trust privacy advocates and educators like PG and Tech Lore to make an informed decision. So when they say that BTC is not anonymous, I believe them.
IMO, saying that wanting anonymous payment methods implies that I need professional help is antithetical to privacy advocacy. This is exactly what people who don’t care about privacy say. That if you’re not Edward Snowden, you don’t need to use Signal, or Tresorit, or Proton, and should be fine with Google and Meta’s services.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand there are levels to privacy, Most advocates describe three levels, beginner, intermediary, and high risk that requires professional help. Most privacy advocates think the first 2 levels are and should be accessible to everyone. I believe that too, and I think wanting anonymous payment methods for specific things is perfectly reasonable for the average person, and IMO, falls under level 2.
Let’s not forget that millions of people have and still use cash, and the overwhelming majority of them don’t have anything even remotely close to Edward Snowden’s threat model.
I will consider JMP Chat, but if someone has any other recommendation that accepts anonymous payment (Monero or cash), please share.
I mean… you asked for answers and what we think, and I gave you one. It’s totally upto you to learn and decide for yourself what’s best.
But let me ask you think so you can clarify: why do you think Bitcoin is not private enough for you? What’s the hindrance? What’s the friction you have with it?
And I am not invalidating your views or opinions either - so, that’s why I said don’t infer anything more than what I said. There’s nothing more to it than just the answer, info, and my opinion for what you’re asking.
Also, cash is “anonymous”, not anonymous. The difference is that cash works best if you mail it in for something like Mullvad VPN. But if you spend cash yourself physically, technically it is not anonymous as there are camera’s everywhere in public that can track ones movement throughout the time you’re out in public. Now, whether you still believe using cash yourself in public is still anonymous is upto you and how strict your definition for anonymous is.
BTC if used properly with the right wallet after having acquired it non KYC is still close enough to an anonymous payment option.
But we’ll be going in circles because I still feel if your threat model absolutely requires 100% anonymity, then that’s an impossible goal to keep chasing. But you do you. Hope you find the solution you’re looking for.
Actually I just checked my JMP.chat account. I did forget that they accept XMR and Cash too. You can generate one time XMR address for you to use to pay. But I forget if that option is available on the very first payment as you’re signing up or only after you’ve signed up to keep the account going from your second payment onward. You can give it a try and find out yourself.