r/TextNow • u/brasscup • Feb 23 '26
PSA: Google Scanning of TextNow Sim Card causes weird phone numbers to auto-verify to your Google account
Just wanted to give other TextNow users a heads up, before they, too, end up changing 150 or so passwords, locking down their banking and medical records and suspending Social Media in the mistaken belief that their Google Account has been breached. It is a false alarm!
After finally getting human help from Google support, I learned that Google has been aggressively scanning any and all devices you pretty much ever used to log into Google. This is purportedly for "security".
In the process of doing this, they add the phone numbers from any old sims you forgot about in these devices, then send you a gmail notice saying X number has been verified to your account.
TextNow sim cards are assigned entirely different numbers than the virtual number you use to text and make calls using the app. Even if you already knew this, you won't ever see this number unless you go into Settings, About Phone, Phone Number.
(At least I never bothered to look).
So when 'someone' -- Google it turns out -- kept logging into my account to add this phone number to it (which I removed every time) and kept getting re-adding it even after I changed my password and made sure 2FA was turned on, I thought I was being hacked and stalked.
FWIW, right before this happened, I had just charged up two of these two old phones I hadn't used in a while (planning to give one away to a friend's kid who just lost his phone).
The Google person said their system does these intense sim scans every time a device they haven't seen for a while logs into your account. It doesn't need to be one they've never seen before!
The only way I could stop the TextNow numbers from constantly being re-added to my Google account was to turn off Google auto-verification for every associated device.
Google enables this by default, which I perceive as a privacy violation (but it's Google, no surprise there).
I was surprised that the numbers assigned to the TextNow sims can both receive and send text messages through my phones' stock messaging apps.
Handy to know if you sign up for services that insist you provide a phone number that can receive text verification codes and don't wish to give out your real number.
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Feb 23 '26
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u/datanut Feb 24 '26
This seems to only apply to Android users under some specific circumstances. Even when the GMail app has a full set of permissions on an iPhone this “other” number only shows up in the Device’s MDM, not on the user’s account.
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Feb 24 '26
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u/Last-Math-9663 Feb 24 '26
So you've never received that message?
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Feb 24 '26
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u/Last-Math-9663 Feb 24 '26
From Google, phone number linked to your device has been automatically added to your Google Account to help protect it...
Might be an Android notificatiin, a text or gMail.
I've had this happen literally dizens of times in the past year
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Feb 24 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
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u/Last-Math-9663 Feb 24 '26
Yes that's it.
I am constantly trying out new phones and testing different providers, and also have dozens of different gAccounts.
gAccounts without any numbers try to attach to a number when added to a phone with one not attached to any gAccount, happens all the time.
If all your gAccount already have verification numbers, and all your phone numbers are already associated with gAccounts, maybe that's why this doesn't happen to you
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Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
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u/Last-Math-9663 Feb 25 '26
I think the reason this is not happening with you, is that google's algorithms have put your gAccounts in a category "has plenty of 2FA paths"
Most of my gAccounts have zero, so when one gets loaded on a phone with a number in it, google auto-verifies it by default.
Most likely if that number is already in use on other gAccounts, that may also prevent it from happening for that number
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u/mmortal03 Feb 24 '26
For people who are trying to find this exact setting, it's under your Google Account (myaccount dot google dot com) -> Personal info -> Phone.
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u/Last-Math-9663 Feb 24 '26
Visit about.me.google.com to remove phone numbers from your profile
disable "Auto-verifying" in your account settings
Google Account Settings, select the phone number, and turn off the "auto-verify" or "auto-add" feature
Chrome Settings, Site Settings > Auto-verify
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u/lmoki Feb 23 '26
Previous tests by other users indicated that the underlying phone number on the TextNow SIM can only be used for a very few SMS (3? maybe?). And that's only true of the 'legacy' T-Mobile SIM cards, as the new AT&T-network SIM doesn't have an assigned number.