What I suggest if you have the opportunity to go anywhere south of the USA is buying a 2$ claro SIM chip and putting 2$ on it at least once every 3 months or so in order to maintain it (Can even maintain payments over the internet as long as you can understand the Spanish website). This makes the monthly cost around 66 cents a month/$7.92 a year for an SMS verification mule, and it will receive texts anywhere that has GSM band 1 without having to activate roaming or anything expensive like that.

Is there a way to automate this? I would be afraid of forgetting to top it up and then having the whole thing fall apart. Personally, it is worth $5/mo to me (Tello's cheapest plan: no data, 500 voice minutes, unlimited text) to not have to deal with manual payments.

I dunno about automating this but I have a calendar for that

> I find it hard to justify paying $8/month for a cellphone plan because others don't do their homework.

Whenever I hear things like this, I like to remind people that they should be most concerned about outcomes, not about what satisfies their indignance. I agree that this situation is ridiculous, but being mad about it isn't going to change the state of the world. If you're genuinely worried about giving out your primary phone number for 2FA or account verification purposes, then this is a solution for you. Being pissed at companies for leaking data is not a solution.

You are absolutely right, and it's definitely a rational choice to give in and buy a dedicated cell phone plan for this purpose.

To my defense, I didn't argue that being pissed at some company would solve anything :)

Yes, but because so many others don't do their homework, you have to take it upon yourself to protect yourself. $8/month does seem like a stupid fee to pay, but for those willing to do it, it isn't that much. Those kinds of companies may even have a pay for 12 months in advance and it get a lower rate.

Could do it cheaper with some more obscure MVNOs https://prepaidcompare.net/