For about 2 years, I was woken up every morning at 7 am because of a broken autodialer. I’m sure it was a school or something with an automated parent calling system, and I wanted to call them to tell them to take me off their list. When I answered the phone, it would beep rapidly for a few seconds then hang up. Sometimes, it would redial. *69 was unable to trace the caller. When I called the phone company, they said the only way to do anything about it was to dial a specific number and then wait for them to call back, and then call the phone company again.
Needless to say, I didn’t want to wake up at 6:30 to try and catch somebody at 7.
The same thing happened in 2004, 2006, and 2008 when I got very annoying calls about the election.
Does the phone company have some kind of secret deal with companies that use autodialers?
You are not tracing anything. You are being asked to create an easy-to-access log, which can be used later by phone company and the authorities.
I think the legal and risk issues to be self explanatory.
Technical issues around ‘tracing’ are not the issue. They know who called you. You know which calls were spooky or harrassing… and they don’t always come from the same number, so you need to log which calls were of that nature. They might come from five different locations, but without your input and a pattern, it’s a wild goose chase.
Tracing phone calls once was an difficult process. With automatic mechanical switches, they’d switch to something else when the call was completed. While it wasn’t a set amount of time like the movies show, it was non-trivial and did require certain things set in advance.
For instance, if you were getting harassing calls, you would call the phone company and they would set up a trace on your phone. When you got another call from the harasser, you’d dial a number (say, “9”) and the connection would stay open even after the harasser hung up, giving authorities plenty of time to trace it. But prior to that, the phone company could do little if the call was short.
The Hollywood version was exaggerated for dramatic effect, but essentially dealt with the actual process.
Now, with electronic switches, a log can be kept and, of course, caller ID gives an instant trace.
However, caller ID can be spoofed, at least per the display on the call recipient’s end. I don’t know what the phone company would see on a spoofed ID call.
There is a very handy tool a lot of phone companies use, it’s called “Call Trace.”
Immediately after receiving the harassing phone call, you enter *57 (1157 on rotary phones)
This information is turned over to law enforcement not the customer.
So it may not be very helpful in the OP’s case as this is not a harassment case of a serious nature. (bodily harm for example)
You shoud call your phone company and see if this is available in your area. There is usually a fee for its use.
Most phone companies also offer (for a fee) inbound call blocker which you can set to block certain numbers from calling you. You can also set a block on the last number called if you don’t know the phone number. Of course this helps little for trunk lines. For example if you have 312-649-XXXX. A business may own all possible numbers and use them as trunks. So when a person dials out he could be calling on 312-649-0001 or 312-649-0002 etc etc
Spoofing calls provides a fun way to fake calls but your real number is still recorded. It’s not hard to trace a call, but it’s getting someone to actually do it. If someone is threatening to murder you, you’ll get top priority. If it’s an autodialer, you go to the bottom of a very long list.
Why not change the number? I know, you’ll say it a giant hassle and why should you undertake it if it’s because someone else is calling you, etc. But let’s face it. They won’t stop and they won’t do anything about it… so it’s time for you to take action into your own hands.
I argued this with the local Baby Bell some years back. According to them, you do not have the right to know who is calling you if their number is blocked (caller ID, *69, etc.)
(This info relates to land lines and may be a couple of years out of date)
Depending on the switch type, a “nusiance trace” request from a customer requires a software change on the customer’s line. After the line gets updated, an output message is generated every time the line gets an incoming call. Depending on where the call originated from, the message either indicates the originating telephone number or the “trunk group” that the call comes in on. Sometimes an “originating trap” might be required at a far end office.
The customer has to keep a log of when the calls come in and provide the times and dates so that the techs can find the appropriate output messages. When they have the required number of matches, then the authorities will take it from there.
There was also a command available in certain switches that would output data from the last incoming and outgoing call. That data was overwritten with each occurance, so you’d have to get the info before another call was made or received.
I recall this being an issue 20-30 years ago when some guy running a computer center at a university in California busted up a spy ring. After noticing some odd usage on their system (minor at that) he started tracking it down and eventually found it was espionage (using the university computer as a jumping off point to get to government computers).
It was traced back to (IIRC) Germany and the phone company there used mechanical switches. They literally spent several days trying to get the trace (the spies would not stay on very long and there were lots and lots of mechanical switches that needed to be checked manually). Eventually they got it and busted the bad guys.
Point being though that tracing, once upon a time, was a serious hassle.
The ‘secret deal’ is that the phone company gets money for every call, they have no monetary incentive to block useless calls.
So basicly; the automated faxmachine that’s calling you is making money for the phone company, they have no incentive to ‘block’ the call.
New numbers tend to have new prefixes… autodialers don’t always have those new prefixes programmed into their systems. It may eventually happen, but you’ll get some time at least…