Called my cell phone, which I do not give out. Did not answer since I don't recognize the number. Came to this site ot check,a nd sure enough, scam. And like Dino Aerospace, called six minutes later while I was reading 800Notes. Now blocked. Goodness, at this rate I will have blocked 90% of the US telephone numbers!
YEAH! The numbers are supposed to be dead for 6 months, but I think we know they do not do that. Another thing is, you would be surprised at the amount of information, i.e. email addresses, phone numbers, etc. are bought and sold to third parties regardless of any company's "PRIVACY POLICY."
Your post is one that people posting should read carefully, because all of what you said is the truth.
We live in a world where money seems to be everything, and lazy people will sit around and come up with new ways to take other peoples hard earned money away from them with just a phone call. If they spent half the time going to school, or looking for a job that they do trying to scam people out of their money, they could probably make a good life for themselves.
The time frame of telephone numbers being reused varies. Depends if it was a residential number or a business. Also impacting that is what is the current age of the existing phone book. Is it about to be replaced? And on top of all of that, the reuse time frame can be altered if there is a shortage of numbers.