Las Vegas is a haven for the unlisted

Wednesday, July 5, 2006 | 7:17 a.m.

This is the story of how Donald Duck, Robinson Crusoe and I.M. Crazy tried to get listed in the Las Vegas white pages.

First things first: Do not think of the Las Vegas phone book as a go-to guide for tracking down residents. It's more an approximation. It gives the essence of the population, but not the reality. That's because there are more unlisted people in the valley than in any other metro area in the country.

Officials from Cox Communications, the 10th largest phone service provider in the country, said Las Vegas has "without a doubt" the most customers who decline to publish their numbers. Embarq, the company formerly known as Sprint, says that 36 percent of customers choose nonpublished numbers. That's higher than any of the 18 states where the company operates.

If the Las Vegas white pages could talk they might say: DO NOT DISTURB.

It's difficult to know precisely why so many customers are unlisted - the phone companies don't ask - but academics say it could reflect a multitude of cultural anomalies that make the area unique. Las Vegas has a nefarious past and many people come here to start over. The Western frontier was settled by people with an independent or anti-government streak. Or, it could just be the region's high population of people who are retired or do shift work.

A random sampling of Las Vegas residents found people who were congenial - but don't bother them at home.

Susan Georgiou of Las Vegas said her number is unlisted to avoid telemarketers - though it has not reduced the annoying calls. She gets prerecorded solicitations on her answering machine "all the time," she said.

Nicole Hagen, a 24-year-old from Boulder City, said she's unlisted because "I don't want people to find me."

"I just like my privacy," Hagen said. "I don't like to be interrupted during different periods of the day."

Brian Wyatt works the graveyard shift at Mandalay Bay, so he sleeps when most people are awake. At least he tries to. He kept an unlisted number because he hated having his sleep interrupted, and the telemarketers were relentless, calling about five times a day.

"We were getting telemarketers in Spanish," he said.

So two months ago, Wyatt cut off his home phone service and switched to a cell phone.

Now telemarketers call the mobile.

There have been rumblings about a possible national wireless 411 registry that would allow people to be tracked down on their cell phones. Perhaps there are many in Las Vegas who would agree with Wyatt's view on the subject: "It'd be a bad idea," he said, shaking his head.

Academics who know local culture and lore were asked to explain the high number of unlisted numbers. Community College of Southern Nevada history professor Michael Green said it may be rooted in the area's lawlessness. Also, with the gambling-based economy there may be a higher percentage of people running from creditors, he said. Green was reminded of an old song from the California Gold Rush, about people who went west to reinvent themselves. The lyrics say:

Oh, what was your name in the states?

Was it Johnson or Thompson or Bates?

Did you murder your wife?

And fly for your life?

Say, what was your name in the states?

"You could say it's a Western or frontier issue of people who just don't want to be found," Green said of the unlisted phone number phenomenon.

UNLV history professor Hal Rothman said there may be no satisfactory explanation for why so many locals are unlisted. But it could reflect the type of people who move to the area.

"Nevada has long been a refuge for people who are suspicious of government and generally ornery," Rothman said in an e-mail. "They may be more inclined to protect their identity from what they see as the prying eyes of Big Brother."

David Wrobel, also a history professor at UNLV, is more pragmatic, stating that retirees or people who are transient may not bother listing their phone numbers.

The quirks of Las Vegas become a way of doing business at Nevada Telephone. Its president, Bob Jankovics, said customers start and stop service so often it's like they're in hiding. And another thing - even though they stay at the same address, they frequently switch their phone number.

"They change their phone numbers like they change their shorts," Jankovics said.

Nevada Telephone, which provides service for about 30,000 customers, goes to extraordinary lengths to protect privacy by allowing customers to register under a fictitious name. Jankovics said he started the service because even unpublished phone numbers are often listed by mistake in the phone book or with directory assistance.

The fictitious name service is called "publication protection" and means that even if a customer's phone number is mistakenly included in directories it will be under an assumed name, making it impossible to trace the actual customer by name. The service is used by about 60 percent of the company's customers.

Officials at Cox Communications say they've never heard of a service like publication protection anywhere else in the country. Jankovics said Nevada Telephone is the only one that offers the service.

Jankovics said he got the idea for publication protection about a decade ago, when an attorney, speaking on behalf of a celebrity, asked for additional assurance that the famous person's name would never appear in a phone book. He agreed to let the celebrity use a pseudonym, and the man asked to use "Robinson Crusoe," the name of the fictional castaway.

But Nevada Telephone has never allowed people to use names of famous people, fictional characters or cartoon characters - much to the disappointment of the many people who tried to register under Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck. They also don't allow clever monikers with double meanings. Sorry Mr. I.M. Crazy - whoever you really are.