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Actually, the more-telling part of the number is the exchange. They'll often match yours, which is dumb as hell.

In the age where most phones are mobile, this whole "scheme" is pitifully ignorant.

Spamming, like many other things in life, is a field of bleeding edge technology. :) They were not using your area code a decade back, then they realized your area code works better - it probably did for a while. When it loses effectiveness, they will move on to other patterns they have discovered.

Also, A/B testing is not just for good guys.

I got a Google Voice number with an area code that's way out in the boonies somewhere. It's super easy for me to identify spam, and to prevent it by not giving my real number to almost anyone.

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