In late August 2017, at Internet Software Sciences we received a few calls from some very upset callers who left messages in our voice mailbox saying that if we didn’t stop calling them and leaving messages, they were “about to call the police on us“.
We were a bit perplexed on how could it be possible that “Internet Software Sciences” with phone number (650) 949-0942 could be calling this folks and they would identify the call with our number when clearly we DID NOT call them. We checked our own outgoing phone call log with our IP telephone provider and no unaccounted out going calls could ever be found. We started asking our telephone provider how could be it possible that our caller ID could possibly appear on the receivers phone caller ID when we didn’t make the call.
Sadly, they informed me about the whole Fake Caller ID options available in our world of IP open telephony! They told me, just do a quick Google search for “Fake Caller ID” and you will see multiple produces, services, even apps for android to fake your ID or make calls with a misrepresented caller ID.
If you go to the CallerIDFaker.com website, you can do a quick free test of how easy it is to spoof a caller ID message.
Is this legal?
Clearly Caller ID Faking is very ripe for abuses and very difficult to track, punish abuses of the option.
How to get the real numbers of the caller?
If you are on the receiving end of calls where you feel the caller ID has been faked, you can now purchase a special app to run on your phones like TrapCall (Trapcall.com).
This app doesn’t help us find who was faking our number but if you are getting faked ID calls, you can get more information about the original caller.
Well informed moving forward
It is important for businesses and organizations to know that you can not trust the caller ID anymore than any “news” on Facebook. Sadly this combination of technology and legal policy has moved our trust in our phone system that was once reliable and honest, and you thought
authoritative to now be suspect, very easy to spoof and requires yet another step of questioning with every call. We hope that your business and organization does not face the same issues we did and if you do you can quickly explain to your upset users how caller IDs can be faked and how to better report abusers.Honest, authoritative Help Desk Software!
In case you or your IT peers are looking for a honest help desk software, Internet Software Sciences is here! It’s free and affordable help desk software. We publish our phone number, direct email and even simple easy to understand pricing all on line. Hopefully you can view our website and product and think these guys are legit!
