My phone number has been cloned.
People are being phoned by somebody using my goddamn number.
I don’t mind the confused old people who call me back, but the “comedian” is so creepy, & so-damn-unfunny, that it bugs me.
Caller ID is easily spoofed. The caller can easily force Caller ID at the receiving end to display whatever the caller wants it to display.
For the last 15 years (!) it has been standard for scammers to impersonate other numbers at random. And also to appear to call from numbers near the number they’re targeting. E.g. if they’re calling numbers in the range 505-356-0001 to 505-356-9999, they’ll pick one or a few numbers in the 505-356-xxxx range and make all their calls appear to come from those few numbers. The thinking is that will fool people into believing the incoming call is from a neighbor, a local business, or similar.
Anyhow, every phone number in America is getting multiple scam calls every day. And every phone number in America is being spoofed as the source of spam calls at least every few weeks.
Right now it’s your turn. It’ll be over soon.
Thank Prime.
With the increasing use of STIR/SHAKEN and similar technology, people need to pay attention to caller ID and not call back any strange unverified number.
I can’t remember the last time we had someone call us because our number had been spoofed.
I’m not sure how much that’s tech or how much that’s simply most people already knowing about the reality of spoofed numbers and the utter futility of calling a displayed number back or even of blocking it.
“Just ignore and move on” has been the near universal conventional wisdom for many years now.
Come to think of it, the fact that we’ve set our landline to block every number remotely similar to our own* might have something to do with it.
*Area code + first number of the exchange. Anyone who really wants to get hold of us should have either my cell number, my SO’s number, or both.
I have in fact received at least 2, maybe 3, calls “originating from” the very phone being called (my own number). But, at least the last scammer (“A package with your name and address containing drugs and cash was seized at the border …” – well, hey, just bring it on over) had the courtesy to call me from 52-729-132-0330.
There are moves in the UK to stop, or at least make it hard.
Labour is proposing a total ban on “spoofing” UK numbers from overseas, plus a block on mobile calls from abroad using UK numbers unless the network provider confirms the user is roaming. Number spoofing occurs when scammers change their caller ID to disguise their identity from the person they are ringing, often making it look as if they are calling from the UK.
Labour said it anticipated pushback from industries that relied on overseas call centres, particularly in India, which handle genuine customer service requests. The party said Offcom should register those companies and their numbers as exceptions, and block all spoofing calls not on that register.
There is already new legislation which means network providers will have to identify numbers which do not uniquely identify the caller and block these calls. Scammers can still buy legitimate UK numbers though.
Italics mine.
What is this strange foreign word in the middle of your otherwise ordinary English sentence? I do not recognize it. 
Maybe a year ago I had a woman call me to yell at me - apparently someone had called her spoofing my cell and said some things that were shocking to a good Christian 18 year old girl. I tried to explain it wasn’t me, but she had hit redial and got me, so that was that. She hung up before I could try and explain.
You must not live in a cellphone desert. If course, that means i need to answer my landline, too.
If it says it’s from “name of business i recognize” i answer the phone. If the first words they say to the answering machine indicate it’s a company i do business with but didn’t recognize their “legal” name as abbreviated by my phone, i pick up. It’s working fine.
We’ve started using nomo-robo, a free service Verizon offered us. Most spam calls ring once and are automatically disconnected. I don’t even look to see who’s calling until the second ring.
We still have a landline because there are some people we do not want calling our cells.
After blocking our area code + first number of the exchange, I noticed that our nomorobo had somehow been disabled. It’s now re-enabled but some of those blocked numbers still try calling – primarily numbers which supposedly belong to SAIC. I picked up once and it was a robocall about Medicare supplement plans.
A couple years a go my son downloaded an app to his phone that spoofed phone numbers. It actually had a free-to-use level with a few calls allowed per day. A pay level would get you (X) amount more calls per day. He used it for harmless pranks with his friends. He demonstrated it to me by calling me using the app and my phone rang with my wife’s name coming up. I don’t understand how that can be legal at all, let alone freely available as a download app.
I’m always getting calls on my landline where the caller ID shows a local phone number and a name. Unless I recognize the name or number I let it go to my answering machine (yes, I still have one of those. 99% of the time I hear the click of a hangup during or immediately after the “please leave a message” ends. (BTW, my message just gives my phone number and a request to leave a message, no name.) If someone starts talking and it doesn’t sound like a junk call I answer the phone.
I don’t bother reporting those numbers to nomorobo any more, because I have better things to do with my life. Occasionally the phone only rings once, which means nomorobo intercepted it.
Spoofing a phone number with the intent to defraud or otherwise harm someone has been illegal since 2009.
Truth in Caller ID Act of 2009
You can be fined up to $10,000 per violation.
However, the sticky part is the whole fraud thing. The actual spoofing itself isn’t illegal. Here’s an article about why it’s hard to prosecute people.
Since intent to harm is hard to prove, and legitimate businesses can’t be accused of having the intent to harm, it’s technically legal to spoof. Phone spoofing is legal in cases like a business displaying their toll-free call-back number or a doctor using their mobile phone and having their office number appear. Even if the intent is to harm or defraud, many of the call centers are located elsewhere than the U.S., so it’s hard to track and regulate them.