Originally Posted by francophile

Essentially, yes. If you've ever listed an ad with your number, it's the same drive behind the robotexts, "hey, i was just checking to see if your <item name> is still available? if so, please email me at <rando-name>@gmail.com"

Just getting your phone number is of benefit, they'll sell to spam/scam callers to try to juke you out of cash. It's more valuable to buyers if they can link a phone number to an email so if you only leave email and no phone number, they'll email and try to get you to call or get a number. If you leave a number, they'll text you and try to get you to email.

Welcome to the future!

I top all of my ads with, "Hello human, if this ad is still here, the item is still available. If you text or email asking if the item is still available, I'll know you're a scammer and ignore it."

This has saved me a mountain of grief.

I've also seen people add an extension onto their number and it foils a lot of the SMS spam, but CL never lets me fo it for some reason.