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Tag: Unlisted Numbers

Getting Phone Calls From Local Numbers? Watch Out: It Might Be ‘Neighbor Spoofing’ Robo-Callers

by Christopher Boyle

 

NEW YORK - Telemarketers have always been a thorn in the side of pretty much anyone and everyone with a phone, and while the advent of cell phones – whose numbers are not typically made public, unlike landlines – have made it more difficult for unwanted solicitors to interrupt your quality time, telemarketers are a crafty bunch, and unfortunately there’s a new way that’s popped up lately for them to disturb your peace once again…even if you DO have a cell phone with an unlisted number.

 

But it’s not just the fact that telemarketers are calling you on your private cell phone; it’s also HOW they’re doing it, which is getting ever-deceptive and, quite frankly, creepy. Often, your average person will tend to ignore a phone call if it’s coming from an area code that’s in no way local to them, but what is the area code IS local? And furthermore, what if the three-digit prefix of the number was the same as yours as well? Most people would almost certainly pick up – even if they had no idea who the caller was – out of sheer curiosity. Surely, they may say to themselves, I must know who this is?

 

However, upon answering, you’re almost always greeted by that tell-tale momentary bout of silence that usually accompanies an auto-dialing program right before a telemarketer or – even worse – a robo-caller starts obnoxiously telling you about their latest sales pitch, whether it’s a posh vacation get-away or a landscaping or roofing offer. But no matter what, the result is always the same…you’re time is being invaded and wasted in the most underhanded and deceptive of ways. But how does a telemarketer – who likely resides on the opposite coast or even country as yourself – manage to trick you into thinking they’re calling from around the block?

 

It’s a technique known as “neighbor spoofing,” and it’s a method where an automatic dialing machine not only starts calling online White Page Directory phone numbers sequentially, one right after the other, but with the ability to change the number that the dialing machine is displaying on the Caller ID of the call recipient each and every time as well, making sure to not only display the same area code but the same three-digit prefix as well. This is a cleaver technique that can fool most people into thinking that they simply MUST know that person who’s calling them – maybe its mom, or a cousin, or someone from work – and you’re almost compelled to pick up and answer. In years gone by this was a difficult task for phone spammers to achieve, but as technology as progressed, it has evolved to the point where it is relatively simple and cheap to do, which is why it’s become a fairly widespread – and supremely annoying – practice as of late.

 

And, unfortunately, it’s all quite legal. While the Truth in Caller ID Act – enacted in 2009 – outlaws telemarketers from misusing Caller ID services to spread or facilitate blatantly false information in an attempt to rip someone off, as long as the product or serviced being offered is perfectly legitimate, it’s not breaking the law. It doesn’t seem right, but it’s a major example of the law very much needing to catch up with technology.

 

If you end up answering the call of a spoofer, there are several steps to take to protect yourself from being conned or taken advantage of, including:

 

  • Never give out personal information such as account numbers, Social Security numbers, mother's maiden names, passwords or other identifying information in response to unexpected calls or if you are at all suspicious.
  • If you get an inquiry from someone who says they represent a company or a government agency seeking personal information, hang up and call the phone number on your account statement, in the phone book or on the company's or government agency's website to verify the authenticity of the request.
  • Use caution if you are being pressured for information immediately.
  • If you have a voice mail account with your phone service, be sure to set a password for it.  Some voicemail services are preset to allow access if you call in from your own phone number.  A hacker could spoof your home phone number and gain access to your voice mail if you do not set a password.

 

Sadly, there’s little one can currently do about “neighbor spoofing” other than simply accepting it, albeit with a great deal of annoyance. Federal “Do Not Call” registries aren’t really much help in these situations due to the fact that someone who is going to all of the trouble to spoof the phone number they are calling from are probably not all that concerned about whether or not they’re violating the privacy of the person they’re calling; in addition, since a spoofed phone number is not legitimate, it’s not like the number can be used to identify the caller anyway. The best route when you see a strangely familiar yet alien number pop up on your phone s to just grit your teeth and let it go to voicemail; not answering may cause the caller to think the number is not active and will possible spare you further headaches in the future.

Should Personal Cell Phone Numbers Be Listed in Public White Pages Directories?

 

NEW YORK, NY - Back in the day, your standard-edition print White Pages directory included pretty much any and every landline-based phone number of every person around, unless they specifically went out of their way to acquire an unlisted number. That’s just the way things were, and cracking open the White Pages was quite simply the only way to find people at the time.

 

Fast-forward to today, and the print White Page directory has become something of a relic with the passage of time and the advance of technology. With the advent of cell phones, people have relied less and less on landline telephones in their residences and more and more on mobile devices…to the point that some homes don’t use landline phones at all, anymore. In fact, approximately 51 percent of American homes are currently “wireless only,” with older demographics more likely to still use a landline phone.

 

But the main difference is that cell phone numbers are not typically made available to the public, and this fact exists for a number of different reasons, the main one being that most cell phone carriers allow their customers a set number of minutes a month (depending on the plan they use), and charge them overage fees for every minute they go over after they’re used up; having cell number publicly available would likely lead to a vast number of calls from telemarketers and other unwanted intrusions, which would eat up those precious minutes quickly. However, in recent years, most carriers have been switching to standard calling plans with unlimited minutes for many of their customers, rendering this issue moot for the most part.

 

However, there remains another factor that currently keeps most cell numbers private- it’s what their owners want, quite frankly. However, it’s very easy for a private cell phone number to be made public; chances are, yours already is, unfortunately. Given the use of the internet by most people, be it social media, online applications, web-based retailers, or countless other sources, you’re typically putting your contact information out there each and every day, and as they used to say, “loose lips sink ships.” That is, eventually your contact information will get out there, and there’s not much you can do about it, short of going completely “off the grid” and eschewing digital interactions altogether, which in this day and age is easier said than done.

 

The fact that the public is clearly and decisively shifting away from landline phone use in favor of cell phones is causing an issue in terms of the White Pages- while landline phone numbers are included in directories by default, the same obviously does not hold true for wireless numbers. So, as the number of landline-based options shrinks, so does the ability for people to get in touch with one another if they need to unless they have been personally bequeathed their cell number. Sometimes this is a good thing, but in the event of an emergency or other urgent occurrence, the lack of a publicly-accessible phone number can cause problems. In addition, some local municipalities have alert systems in place that can text vital information to residents in case of a disaster; this leaves those with private numbers out of the loop when they may desperately need to be in it.

 

Therefore, in light of now-commonplace unlimited phone plans and the fact that many so-called “private” cell phone numbers are bleeding out into the public anyway, an argument could easily be made in favor of the establishment of an official, public cell phone White Pages that would be officially monitored with oversight to ensure that abuse will be kept at a bare minimum. After all, by 2020 it is anticipated that over two billion people worldwide will be using cell phones to communicate, so it might be worth thinking about creating a way to catalog and arrange all of that data into an accessible form, but only if it’s done in a responsible way to safeguard contact information.

 

Of course, not everyone will want their cell numbers public, and that’s very understandable; such a database should be an opt-in affair only. But for those who are willing, there are currently many legitimate ones available where users can manually enter their contact information, making it searchable by those who may need to get in touch with them, especially in regards to something of great importance. And, of course, there are safeguards in place to make sure that information is not misused…at least, not any more than it already is through years of online shopping and social media use.

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