As I mentioned previously, I recently had to buy my first smart phone. It works. I am calling my friends and family to tell them my new number.
When I call a number, like my brother’s, his phone’s display shows my phone number. Cool. I then tell him that this is my new number. He types my name into his phone and from then on his display will show my name when I call.
So why is it that when my bank (or whoever) calls me, my phone displays “The Bank” or somesuch? I have never gotten a call from them on this phone before.
Can I set up my phone to broadcast my name to every phone I call?
When you got the new phone, did you have an old SIM card from your old phone installed in it, or, alternately, did the person who set up your new phone import any data (like your contact list) from your old phone? More specifically, did your new phone already have the “phone book” listings from your old phone in it? If so, that’s probably how.
I think some numbers from large institutions pop up that way. I get calls from Spam Risk, Telemarker, and things of that nature on a daily basis. My bank has never called me, but it wouldn’t surprise me if something like that is attached automatically.
I’m not joking here. You can always dial (touch tone) *82 to temporarily disable caller ID blocking. That way the recipient knows who you are upon calling. It might help.
Many companies give free CallerID for an introductory period when you set up a new smart phone. It’s usually for 3 months or so, then they start charging you if you want to keep it. Typically, it’s an opt in, not an opt out, so you can’t accidentally end up paying for it.
It still may be free introductory CallerID. If people have blocked CallerID you won’t get their information. If you sign into your account it should list if you have it activated on your phone.
CNAM (Caller Name) is typically set up to reflect the entry in the local directory (AKA The Telephone Book - remember those?). Cell phones do not get listed, so usually there is no CNAM attached in the national database.
I suppose you could call your provider and ask for your name to be attached to your number, but I suspect this would only confuse the poor schmuck in the call center, as I highly doubt this is a common request.
Last week I got a series of presumably spam calls, presumably because I didn’t answer them and no VM was left. The first one was from SCTSDL CITY GOV – at 6:30am on a Sunday morning. Then over the next few hours and on into Monday were calls from UNKNOWN NAME (three times), WIRELESS CALLER, and CALIBRUS. The last one I looked up and it’s an inbound call center for medical practices, not likely to be calling anyone.
I figure it’s some scam center that figured showing as 480-eee-xxxx where eee is my exchange doesn’t work any more. Perhaps they got a list of caller IDs from somewhere.