[yurishimo]

Your story reminds me of a similar one. I got my first cell phone around 2008 as a teenager. The previous owner also had problems paying her bills and that is probably why she ditched the number.

I got calls for literally a decade until they figured out she wasn't going to answer on this number anymore. At first, I would hang up when I heard the robo-voice asking for her, but the calls didn't slow down and eventually stop until I waited on the line for a collections agent to pick up so I could politely tell them to pound sand and stop calling me. Even then it took another few years.

Funnily enough, I recently moved out of the US and ported my number to Google Voice in case I want to come back in the next few years. My phone hardly rings with spam calls now.