Yes, I do this plenty. I have some SIMs I continue to pay for in cash (pay as you go) so I keep having access to the phone number, and it's not easily tieable to my identity (ie you'd figure out who it was probably through watching CCTV of me buying it which seems like quite a lot of effort, so good enough for people with lower threat models).

I don't know where you are but in terms of selecting a service or phone, I would just walk into a local shop and see what they have on offer. I can't imagine prices would vary that wildly between shops.

Edit: also no need to buy a whole new phone if you don't have a state threat model and just want to make it harder to track you for eg data mining corpos. You can just swap out the sim in your normal phone to receive texts then put your regular sim back in afterwards. Or if you have a dual sim tray. You could also anonymously buy an esim so it doesn't take up a physical sim slot.

Prepaid is the same as Postpaid in my country (USA). I can't speak for your country, but here, banks accepted my prepaid number just fine. My Google Voice (VOIP) number, however, got rejected by my bank. So banks here seem to treat prepaid as just a normal number.

The only way to test if that work is to buy the cheapest plan and try it. Don't give up if it fails, sometimes you get a number that was misused by the person who has it before and they got the number flagged, try again by contacting customer service of your cell service and requesting a number change.

Yes, I created an entire fake identity with it that I'm now using here so I can say what I want without worrying about loosing my job.

One thing to keep in mind is that most prepaid providers require you to use the phone every once in a while, or you loose the number (don't ask me how I know and don't ask me what happens if I forgot my password)

Yup, it works in the Czech Republic and it's fully anonymous. How would they know it's prepaid?

I use phones from e-waste, 2G still works here so there's plenty of Nokias (even 3310-like ones) I can use.

A bit out there, but I plan on doing this soon:

• Get a SIM
• Grab an old Android phone
• Relay SMS to Matrix via the SMS bridge

I already use Matrix bridges for Signal, Discord, IRC, etc, so this means the number is never tied to my location, but I can use it for things like banking 2FA.

smspool seems like a much simpler / cheaper solution.

This is standard practice for me. You don't even need another flip phone. Most phones come with a dual sim tray. I keep the 2nd sim in my phone and keep the sim switched off in the settings. I do all signups with this number.

i've been using prepaid for almost a decade now and i only buy $100 androids with the latest release and i use my voip number for everything.

i started doing the prepaid plan because i don't always renew each month since i only need the data connection and i'm almost always at home. the $100 androids are a thing for me because i'm klutz with all personal electronics. so it's more like i accidentally stumbled upon this form of privacy rather than seeking it out from the onset.

I don't see why it wouldn't work. Just VoIP numbers often get rejected.

Honestly, if you don't want a separate device, I'd sign up for a VoIP number. I use voip.ms, it's a dollar or two a month for the number, and you pay per minute and per text (about a penny each, IIRC). You can forward calls to your primary number, or set up a SIP app (I'm using one called ZoiPer). I usually load it up with $20 per year or so.

Depends on country. In the United States, you might look at something like the T-Mobile Connect prepaid plan and the Nokia 225 4G. And yes, prepaid numbers absolutely do work for app registrations. I've been on prepaid for years and had no issues. It's voice over IP numbers that have problems.