Everything you need to know about phone spoofing

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Unscrupulous telemarketers and scammers are always looking for new ways to get people to answer their calls. Most phones have the ability to screen calls, providing information about the caller when the phone rings. But an increasingly common technique used by scammers is to spoof caller ID information.

With phone spoofing, caller ID displays a phone number or other information to make it appear that calls are coming from another person or business. Although the caller's information may appear local, the calls are often coming from telemarketers located out of state or out of the country. Those who spoof calls do so for malicious or unscrupulous purposes, causing many people to believe that caller ID can no longer be trusted.

History of phone spoofing
Phone spoofing has been used for years by people with a specialized digital connection to the phone company. Law enforcement and collection agencies have been using the practice for years, sometimes legally but often not. In 2004, a company called Star38.com launched the first phone spoofing service that allowed fake calls to be made from a web interface. Many similar sites were launched the following year.

Phone spoofing was also used to scam sellers on websites like eBay and Craigslist. In these scams, a caller would contact the seller and claim to be calling from Canada with an interest in purchasing the advertised items. They would Cell Phone Number Database often ask sellers for personal information, such as a copy of their registration title and other documents, and then relist the items to sell fraudulently. Phone spoofing was also used during the US election, with phone calls using fake caller IDs from hospitals and ambulance companies to get potential voters to pick up the phone. Robocalls were used in the same way, with a fake caller ID and appearing to be from a local number rather than a state call center.

Phone spoofing is also used to make prank calls. For example, someone might call and have a television station or doctor's office appear on the recipient's call screen as a prank call. A viral news story from 2008 reported that a man was arrested for making threatening phone calls to women and having their own home numbers appear on the caller ID to make it appear as if the calls were coming from inside the home.



In recent years, Voice over IP (VoIP) spoofing has become more popular as telecommunications companies have rented thousands of phone numbers to anonymous voicemail providers, allowing phone spam to become an increasing problem. Scammers also spoof calls to impersonate police, utility companies, immigration officials, health insurers, and others. Many spoofing scams target seniors, with scammers posing as family members and requesting fake wire transfers.

How spoofing works
Phone spoofing allows scammers to trick caller IDs into displaying false information. These scam companies or individuals know that many people no longer answer calls from 1-800 numbers, numbers with unknown prefixes, or numbers that don't display information on the caller ID (sometimes listed as "unknown"). By spoofing local phone numbers or information on caller ID devices, scammers hope to trick the recipient into answering a call they would otherwise decline.

For example, you may receive a call on your smartphone from a number that is the same as your area code or from a number that differs from your phone number by just a few digits. In some cases, you may see your own name and phone number on the caller ID. Scammers using phone spoofing do so through a variety of methods and technologies.

Voice over IP
When phone spoofing first emerged, it required a deep knowledge of telephone equipment, which used to be very expensive. More recently, open source software has made it possible for almost anyone to spoof calls at very low cost and with little technical knowledge. One of the most common forms of spoofing is through VoIP.

VoIP stands for "Voice over Internet Protocol" and is essentially a telephone service delivered over the Internet. If you have a good Internet connection, telephone service can be delivered over the Internet instead of through the telephone company. VoIP services can be a great alternative to traditional telephone services, but they can also be prone to phone spoofing.