The Republic Wireless Problem--When You Get Lakecia Hickson's Old Number

Republic Wireless is good and cheap. Well, it's cheap, and usually good, just not if your secondary Jacksonville number used to belong to Lakecia Hickson. Even though I kept my own cell phone number from Wisconsin, when I activated my new phone in Florida, Republic felt it necessary to give me a more local number as my backup cell number, but I'm going to have to explain that one to you.


Basically, Republic uses VOIP and my own 414 phone number. It's even seen as kind of a landline. But landlines don't send and receive over cellular networks, so every Republic phone also has a Sprint phone number. You have to look this one up by dialing some diagnostic code into the phone. My old Sprint number was probably another 414 number, but I never felt the need to look it up. When I dialed people on cell networks, my own number somehow came up on their screens, even though it was really being sent by the Sprint number. I suppose it's a spoofing of sorts, but no big deal, and totally OK with the FCC.

However, if you get your new Sprint secondary number from Republic and it's been used at some point by Ms. Hickson, then it's a bigger deal. She probably changed her number because of all the phone calls. I don't know anything about her, and I'm not judging, but there are people out there looking for her. I'd also have changed my number if blocking the calls didn't work (which it doesn't).

I recently started getting phone calls from a local dentist and school for Anna and Gabriel. I don't want to seem racist, but if my guess is right, Anna and Gabriel don't belong to Lakecia Hickson. That means someone else also has had this number, probably in the past year. And that person might have given it up because of the constant calls for Lakecia.

We had to deal with this years ago with good old Kewanna McCormick on my wife's phone. At least those calls have disappeared. I'm not sure if it takes months or years. One thing I can be sure about is that Lakecia is not going to change her number with the people who are calling my number looking for her. She doesn't want to hear from them. I also know that Anna and Gabriel's mom should change their phone number at various places, including the dentist, school, and CVS. Lastly, I know that calling these places and trying to explain makes me look like a scammer or criminal, and calling the places looking for Lakecia won't get them to stop, since we tried that in the past. Bill collectors (and the like) probably robo-call every known number for a person until someone picks up, and the companies probably use different robo-numbers when I block each one that comes in.

My best bet is to ask Republic to issue me a new Sprint secondary number. My wife's Florida number seems to be spam-free, so my hope is that there's a number out there somewhere in the 904 that isn't from one of Lakecia's burner phones.