The internet privacy issue became personal for me earlier this week. According to my wife, a young man who sounded like he was just starting to shave called to ask if we were interested in listing our house for sale with his brokerage company. We have a very nice home, and having lived in it for nearly 10 years we felt it was time to sell. We then listed the house with one of Westchester’s most reputable brokers and have had it on the market for about nine months. Unfortunately, like a lot of folks we have had almost no activity. So we decided to take the house off the market about a month ago. Why this fellow thought we would do business with him over the phone is beyond me.
It happens all the time, right? What makes this little episode so galling is that the young man called my wife on her cell phone. Astounded, my wife asked him how in the world he got her cell phone number. He then meekly responded by saying, “Why, TheRedX.com website, of course.”
Infuriated, my wife called RedX and told them to remove her phone number, which they did immediately. I’m sure this isn’t the first time they received a call like my wife’s and had to remove phone numbers and other personal information. What bothers me is how easily they made a cell phone number obtainable to anyone who pays for their service. The website says that The RedX provides “solutions so agents can make more money.” Really. I think if more people knew how callously they treated private information, and made their objections known like my wife did, passing along private information would stop. And private information would remain private.