I got an angry phone call today from a local number (note: My number is from an out-of-state area code), from someone complaining that I was stealing his WiFi, and yelling at me to stop. I have no idea what he was talking about, because the only WiFi I’ve been using is my own. But he said that he saw my IP address in his logs, and looked it up to get my phone number.
Now, I suppose that it’s theoretically possible that this is a scam of some sort, but it doesn’t seem likely, since he wasn’t even remotely attempting to get any sort of information from me. More likely, he was sincere, just extremely confused. But I’m at a loss to figure out what actually happened.
Obviously, it’s not what he said: First of all, I’m not using his WiFi, and second of all, if someone is using his WiFi, the only IP address that person would have would be one they got through him. And you can’t connect IP addresses to phone numbers, anyway.
But allowing for him being confused, there’s apparently something going on with his network, and something he did in looking into it somehow gave him the number for a mobile phone with an area code across the country, but which is physically located near him.
Can anyone figure out what’s going on here? And if my phone number is somehow showing up in places that make it look like I’m doing something wrong, how can I stop that?