Spam phone calls with local numbers

[mdurette]

Just a vent....

Ugh.....what a pain. As you may know spammers use a local number for the caller ID in hopes that you pick up the call.

I recently found out they are using my cell phone number provided by my employer. The scam is for credit cards and as luck would have it I work for a financial institution. So, when people back the number....they are less than impressed as they think my employer that is repeatedly calling them!

I told my DH about it last night and coincidently he received a similar call on his personal cell yesterday from a person telling him to stop calling him. Same thing, credit cards - he ended up having the person call him at his place of employment to prove that he wasn't a scammer.

This is more aggravating than just getting the spam calls!

 

[Sandy VDH]

spoofing numbers is rampant in the age of caller id.

 

[dioxide45]

We have seen a huge influx of these. Scam calls using a local area code and exchange. I have never called any of the numbers back but I suspect that they could very well be real telephone numbers. I block them through Ooma blacklist but I think I am getting to the point to only allow calls through that are from people on our contact list.

You would think in this day and age that the telephone companies could put a stop to this and not allow spoofing of caller ID.

 

[Panina]

We have seen a huge influx of these. Scam calls using a local area code and exchange. I have never called any of the numbers back but I suspect that they could very well be real telephone numbers. I block them through Ooma blacklist but I think I am getting to the point to only allow calls through that are from people on our contact list.

You would think in this day and age that the telephone companies could put a stop to this and not allow spoofing of caller ID.

My cell number is from NY and I live for years in SC. I use to get many (still so early) of these calls from NY numbers. I have to answer each new one as mom still lives in NY and I never know if I will get an emergency call as I did a few years ago from a number other then hers.

What I do each time I get one of these calls is mark it as spam. It seems theses spam companies have lots of phone numbers. Over time these spam companies reuse the same number so it has reduced the calls I receive.

There are also legit companies that use local exchange numbers. I order products from one of these companies and they have multiple numbers.

 

[ausman]

Not for the situation where your number is being spoofed - but you are receiving calls like this on a VoIP line (cable company provides phone service) check out nomorobo. There have been many prior discussions on TUG about this and nomorobo. If you have a cell phone there is around a $2/mth charge to use nomorobo but if a VoIP line it is free. On a traditional land line not much, that is effective, can be done.

 

[SmithOp]

AT&T wireless has a free app (Call Protect) that identifies telemarketers, the call comes through but when I see Telemarketer I hit ignore.

I’ve had several this week from Tombstone AZ.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

 

[x3 skier]

AT&T wireless has a free app (Call Protect) that identifies telemarketers

I’ve found that app fairly effective. With the nomorobo on my cable phone, not much gets thru anymore. The cable phone rings once if a robo call then disconnects.

The ATT app either blocks it, allows it but calls it suspected Spam or Telemarketer or lets it thru as a good call. Seldom guesses wrong.

Cheers

 

[WalnutBaron]

I also recommend the Privacy Star app. It immediately shunts robocalls to your blocked list and shields you from the relentless telemarketing wolves.

 

[DaveNV]

I also answer any local call to my cell phone, because I never know when it may be a legitimate caller. I work at a hospital, and it could be a coworker, or the local police (like when my home was broken into and my security alarm went off), a coworker of my spouse, a friend of my elderly sister, or whoever, and I don't want there to be a problem missing a call. As soon as I hear the recording of "Hi! This is so-and-so with Card Services..." or similar, I hang up. Blocking the number is useless, because I know it is a spoofed number, and next time it may be a legit local number from someone I know.

What's worse, is lately I've been getting calls from people saying, "You just called me. What did you want?" I hadn't called anyone. Initially I thought it was a cell phone provider error or misdialed call, but I've come to think it's these spammers spoofing the caller ID, and that my number had come up in the rotation. When I explain to the people that it wasn't really me calling them, some of them believe me, and that's that. Others sound doubtful, and I suggest they block my number so they won't get any more calls from the fake "me." It's annoying.

Yesterday I got a call from a Hawaii 808 area code number. I'm working on the itinerary for our Spring trip to Hawaii, so I answered the call. It was a recorded robocall from a resort I used to own in Hawaii, advising me to "call in, regarding irregularities in my account." I don't know if it's real or not, but I'm not calling them back. I sold my unit in that resort over a year ago. If there are irregularities in the account, that's not my problem. But I'd like to know why I'm still on an owner's list (for any resort) more than a year after it was sold.

Dave

 

[bluehende]

I had one spoof my own number. I did pick that one up and gave them a piece of my mind.

 

[pedro47]

I had one spoof my own number. I did pick that one up and gave them a piece of my mind.

You sound liked my spouse; she blessed that person one night and they have not call back. I think it was Las Vegas Reward calling.

 

[clifffaith]

Our business line phone number was spoofed a couple years ago. I was amazed at the number of people who return missed calls. I figure if they didn't leave a message and no name shows up, no need to wonder who it was.

 

[presley]

My home number must have been used as a spoof recently. I had a message from someone asking me why I called him and how I got his number. At first I didn't understand why he called me to ask why I called him (since I hadn't), but then figured he must have been returning a spoofed call. Nothing we can do about that. Devices to block robo calls don't stop people from using our phone numbers to spoof their calls.

 

[DRIless]

HEATHER from Account Services is out of jail I guess. She's now calling me from Greece.

 

[klpca]

Somewhat related (annoying calls) - at work we use voip through Ring Central. In addition to our pubic numbers, each of us has a direct line that goes straight to our extension (handy for spouses etc). About a year ago, I started getting a lot of angry phone calls on my direct line asking our business to stop sending junk mail. We don't send *any* unsolicited mail so I had no idea what these people were talking about. Finally I got a call from a very nice guy so I was able to ask him what mailer he had received and what number had he called. He had received a mailer from a company that buys houses and he had called an 800 number - nothing close to my direct line. Somehow, we were getting the calls for a completely different company from another state! It took me about two months to get this resolved. I finally reached someone at their home office who believed me since I surprisingly received a call from someone who wanted to sell a house. (That got their attention when they realized that they were missing sales). I have no idea how it was resolved but Ring Central was the common link, even though they denied that it was an issue on their end.

 

[DaveNV]

Phones are generally nice to have, but can be a surprising nuisance - especially convenient number combinations. In the late 1970s I transferred with the Navy to San Diego. I got an apartment off base, and when setting up my phone number with the local phone company, I asked the clerk to find me an easy number to remember, since I moved so much, I always had trouble remembering my own number. (This was long before cell phones, or any sort of computer-assisted dialing.) They got me a really easy number I still remember: 234-5660. It was awesome, I thought. A sequence of numbers like that was no problem remembering. I was happy.

Within a few days I started getting random calls from people, one or two a day, and most calls went to the answering machine I had on the line. The calls were reporting this or that animal had been struck by a car at such-and-such address, or they'd seen a dead deer or coyote on the side of the freeway. At first I was kind of weirdly amused, but then it got to be a hassle. When the phone rang at 2:00 one night, I grabbed it, thinking it was an emergency call from my work. It was a caller who was crying and shrieking, wanting me to come help with a dead dog they had just hit with their car.

I found out then that they were calling "Dead Animal Pickup" from the local humane society, or county services, or whoever. The right number was 234-5560. My number was 234-5660. A simple misdial of a 6 where a 5 should go caused all the inconvenience. I changed the recording on my answering machine to alert callers that this was not "Dead Animal Pickup" and to call again to the 5560 number, and the recordings mostly stopped. I still got the random call when I happened to answer the phone when it rang. I was a bit relieved when I moved a year later, and my phone number changed.

After all these years, it still makes me wonder about wrong numbers, and the trouble they might cause. My situation was fairly minor (if a little gross) but what about emergency services and such? Having things like 911 available probably stopped a lot of that sort of thing, or when digital dialing started, and entire banks of phone prefixes were assigned to companies. In those days in San Diego, "234" was a common prefix used for all sorts of customers.

Dave

 

[klpca]

In those days in San Diego, "234" was a common prefix used for all sorts of customers.

Dave

Lolz. 234 is my company prefix.

 

[DaveNV]

Lolz. 234 is my company prefix.

You should dial that number and see who answers.

Dave

 

[Eric B]

I managed to get a number with a lot of zeros in it years ago when I lived in So Cal and have kept it since then because it’s easy to remember. The local number spoofing has been the best thing that happened for me; since I picked out the number, there isn’t anyone from the same area code and prefix that I know, so I reject all the junk calls.

I do occasionally get calls from someone wanting to rent a jet ski in Lake Havasu due to a similar number some rental place has, but it beats being asked to pick up dead critters!

 

[theo]

I also recommend the Privacy Star app. It immediately shunts robocalls to your blocked list and shields you from the relentless telemarketing wolves.

Please forgive my (readily admitted) technological ignorance, but how earth could a mere "app" possibly discern that an incoming call is a robocall as opposed to a legitimate call?

 

[Blues]

Phones are generally nice to have, but can be a surprising nuisance - especially convenient number combinations.

Back about 25 years ago, when digital voice mail was in its infancy, we moved to our present house and I got a new home phone number. It worked fine for a year or two. Then, as I found out later, Pacific Bell instituted a voice mail service with a local dial-in number one digit away from my home phone. What a giant pain! Constant phone calls from people insisting that they had called their voice mail, so what was I doing on the line? It did get amusing sometimes, though. A lot of people left messages on our answering machine, including the touch-tone codes for their password. Having worked for Bell Labs, I could easily have created a touch tone decoder and gotten access to a large number of people's voice mail. I briefly thought of doing that, just for the purpose of leaving messages about their technological incompetence. But the better angel on my shoulder won that debate ;-)

 

[DaveNV]

Please forgive my (readily admitted) technological ignorance, but how earth could a mere "app" possibly discern that an incoming call is a robocall as opposed to a legitimate call?

I can't speak to that app, but I used to have a gadget attached to my land line phone that would slightly delay the ringing, to open the line and determine if it was an automated device, like a fax machine or voice recording. If it was, it would return a tone that told the machine this number was disconnected, and hang up without ever ringing the phone. (Don't ask me how it did that.) A live caller only had a few seconds delay, usually not noticeable, followed by normal ringing. It cut way down on spam calls. I still have it here someplace, but I no longer have a land line, so it's not being used. Wish I could use it with my cell phone.

Dave

 

[1st Class]

I can't speak to that app, but I used to have a gadget attached to my land line phone that would slightly delay the ringing, to open the line and determine if it was an automated device, like a fax machine or voice recording. If it was, it would return a tone that told the machine this number was disconnected, and hang up without ever ringing the phone. (Don't ask me how it did that.) A live caller only had a few seconds delay, usually not noticeable, followed by normal ringing. It cut way down on spam calls. I still have it here someplace, but I no longer have a land line, so it's not being used. Wish I could use it with my cell phone.
Dave

We use NOMOROBO for our landline and I noticed that it is now available for cell phones (with a fee, of course ). The phone rings only once for SPAM numbers. These numbers are evidently added to a database and essentially works the same way as manually blocking a call on a landline. Love it!

 

[jackio]

We use NOMOROBO for our landline and I noticed that it is now available for cell phones (with a fee, of course ). The phone rings only once for SPAM numbers. These numbers are evidently added to a database and essentially works the same way as manually blocking a call on a landline. Love it!

We have been using Nomorobo for years and I love it. I only have it on my home phone, though.

 

[Bucky]

I frankly don’t understand why anyone that has a cell phone still has a land line at all. For business needs yes but, not for personal use only. I use to hear about the cell phones being bad on 911 calls. I can vouch that is not the case. Worked perfectly for me last month.

We ported our old landline number to our cell provider and it works perfectly. Now we keep our cells on “Do Not Disturb” and have it programmed to only let through calls from those in our contacts list. We just turn it off when waiting for a call from someone we know isn’t in our contacts list. This way all calls from those not in our contacts roll into voicemail. If they leave a message we listen to the start of it. If they don’t leave a message it wasn’t worth answering in the first place. Very rarely Willa spammer leave a message!

This killed two problems at one time. Eliminated spam calls and did away with another useless monthly bill.