Comment by jandrese
5 months ago
Which makes me wonder how much these guys spent per phone number. If you figure you can use a phone number maybe 2 or 3 times per service before it gets blocked they could create literally millions of accounts with this operation across various services. I don't know what the black market value for a Gmail, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, HN, etc... account is, but I suspect it is more than the price of a SIM card.
The SIMs pictured in the article are from a carrier called MobileX so that’s the first clue to finding that out. Looks like a couple bucks is enough to get started, but a dealer on the take may have more attractive options and the ability to activate a lot of SIMs without the fuss of signing up accounts with email for each one.
About a $1 for a Gmail, IG etc these days.
I've used this before when I need to create an IG for a work project without wanting to link it to a personal number:
https://www.textverified.com/verifications