Weird phone call today

So today I was working on a rental house my wife and I own that we want to sell. I took a 5 minute(maybe 15) break and got a phone call on my cell. I answered it thinking it was either the cruise I had won or a hospital bill I owe...

It was from the sound of it a young girl. She said she had received a call from my phone number and wondered why.

I said I never made the call and hung up.

Since I was on break sitting down, I looked at my phones recent calls, thinking butt dial and what not.... no recent calls.

So I text caller and said as much. They asked for my name, said they were a 12 yo boy..... I told them to tell their parents and to have them call me...

Is there some sort of scam out there dialing random phone numbers?

If not, how did my phone number dial that phone?

originally posted by: tinner07
So today I was working on a rental house my wife and I own that we want to sell. I took a 5 minute(maybe 15) break ....

Maybe you went all Tyler Durden in that missing ten minutes... Hmmmmmmm

Scammers are now "Spoofing" their numbers and it will come across as a local number even though it most likely originated in another country.

The numbers they use are random and most likely your number just came up.

We have tried to investigate these, but no success.

For a month someone in Washington DC kept calling me.

I never answered.

a reply to: tinner07

phone number spoofing most likely.
nothing to do with you i imagine.
i would have left it with no i never called you. haha.

I've had it show up as my own number. Or 0404040404. Or invalid. Or one digit off of any number that I typically call from my cell. I don't know why this is legal. There's really no point to answering the phone anymore. Why have a phone?

originally posted by: tinner07
So today I was working on a rental house my wife and I own that we want to sell. I took a 5 minute(maybe 15) break and got a phone call on my cell. I answered it thinking it was either the cruise I had won or a hospital bill I owe...
..
If not, how did my phone number dial that phone?

This is pretty common. I see this all the time. There are some phone exchanges that allow people to insert whatever phone number they like into the "Caller ID" records that get transmitted.

So, for example, if your actual phone number is 212-555-6767, you can change that number in your "Caller ID" records to show 305-876-3212, so when the person on the other end of the phone line picks up, they think you're calling from Florida, instead of New York. They don't see your real phone, they see a fake phone number, which could very well be someone else's real phone number. Telephone scams use this technique all the time.

The thing is, the average person can't do this with their phone. You need a special telephone service to be able to do this.

It's a telephone service that is commonly leased out to businesses, not to individuals.

When you run a business telephone exchange, say you're a Stock Broker Corporation, you usually have one phone number for incoming calls, and several phone numbers for outgoing calls. The outgoing phone numbers are usually "private", so that the brokers don't get calls from random people. When a particular broker calls you up with his phone line, it doesn't display his actual phone no., instead you see the public Corporation phone number. If you call back that number that shows up on your Caller ID, you get the general business exchange, maybe a receptionist answers, or an automated message asks you to enter the ID of the person you'd like to reach, etc..either by name or by some extension number.

The business has to have that ability to swap out the real phone # of each broker, and replace it with the one general business phone used for all incoming calls.

They are not supposed to use any other numbers, in the modified Caller ID, than one they are legally entitled to use.

But, depending on the telephone exchange you lease services from, there's often no actual restriction on what numbers you can put into the "Modified Caller ID" records.

So, unscrupulous people, lease business telephone services, and modify their Caller ID records, using any random phone numbers they want, to hide their true identity from you, while they call you up to spam something on you.

The telephone exchange always knows the real identity of the callers, however, so they can be caught. But, the consumers don't know who they are. The consumer can place a request with the telephone company to put a "trace" on the last call that he got, and determine the true identity of the caller. But, phone co.s usually charge a fee for this service.

In the end, it's too much of a hassle for the average consumer to bother. So, the spammers continue to spam.

It's a mystery why they do it, since it isn't clear how they make money from this. Seems to be just for fun.

a reply to: semperfortis

Scammers are now "Spoofing" their numbers and it will come across as a local number even though it most likely originated in another country. The numbers they use are random and most likely your number just came up. We have tried to investigate these, but no success.

this was weird. what is the point? This sounded actually real, we texted until I told her to have her parents call me....

They did keep asking my first and last name,,,

a reply to: AMPTAH

Thanks for the response,,, but lets just say that this caller was sincere.... that they did get a call from my phone number. Is that possible with what you are describing?

originally posted by: tinner07
a reply to: semperfortis

this was weird. what is the point? This sounded actually real, we texted until I told her to have her parents call me....

They did keep asking my first and last name,,,

In order not to be caught up in some scam, or "online gaming swatting" joke, it's best to never answer any unknown calls, and never call back numbers you don't know, and never give any information about your self over the phone to strangers.

Lots of weird things going on in the world. Stay safe.

originally posted by: tinner07
a reply to: AMPTAH

Thanks for the response,,, but lets just say that this caller was sincere.... that they did get a call from my phone number. Is that possible with what you are describing?

They can't get a call from your phone number, if you didn't call them. And the telephone exchange would be able to "verify" that.

However, they can "think" they got a call from your phone, because your phone number can show up on their phone, as if you called them, because some other "genius" has used your phone number to broadcast that in his "Caller ID" records.

You can never fool the phone company. But, you can fool the consumers.

Again thank you. i am thinking to go to the police tomorrow to see why somebody is using my phone number to contact a 12 y o girl..... thoughts?

a reply to: AMPTAH

However, they can "think" they got a call from your phone, because your phone number can show up on their phone, as if you called them, because some other "genius" has used your phone number to broadcast that in his "Caller ID" records.

I bought my phone at a store called Genius.

originally posted by: tinner07
Again thank you. i am thinking to go to the police tomorrow to see why somebody is using my phone number to contact a 12 y o girl..... thoughts?

Remember, the phone company knows the actual caller. The records you see on your "Caller ID" are "soft data", and can be manipulated and changed by people who know how to do these things. But, the phone company also has transaction data, called "hard data" that cannot be manipulated by anyone. This "hard data" is not shown on your Caller ID. But, the phone company has it, and uses it to track and trace the actual connections between caller and receiver. That's how they know who to "bill" for services. They don't use "Caller ID" to bill you. So, if you have any reason to suspect there may be a crime involved, using your identity, then you should report it.

originally posted by: tinner07
Again thank you. i am thinking to go to the police tomorrow to see why somebody is using my phone number to contact a 12 y o girl..... thoughts?

Basically, these are the usual suspect scammers; free vacations, credit card offers, etc - the basic premise of the spoofing is to pick a phone number in your local exchange as the caller-id - so, when you look at your caller-id, instead of ignoring the "Out of area" calls, you see it's local, assume it's someone you know, your doctors office, what have you, and pick up.

The phone number called is random - whoever is behind it didn't know they were calling a 12-year-old girl.

Just google caller-id spoofing - you'll see it's a huge annoyance right now. Really nothing to call the police over. But your call, (no pun intended.)

originally posted by: tinner07
So today I was working on a rental house my wife and I own that we want to sell. I took a 5 minute(maybe 15) break and got a phone call on my cell. I answered it thinking it was either the cruise I had won or a hospital bill I owe...

It was from the sound of it a young girl. She said she had received a call from my phone number and wondered why.

I said I never made the call and hung up.

Since I was on break sitting down, I looked at my phones recent calls, thinking butt dial and what not.... no recent calls.

So I text caller and said as much. They asked for my name, said they were a 12 yo boy..... I told them to tell their parents and to have them call me...

Is there some sort of scam out there dialing random phone numbers?

If not, how did my phone number dial that phone?

Joking rt? There are auto dialers and random bots crawling along in the thousands even with the occasional live "12 yr old".

BIG MISTAKE returning any calls like that... In a way youve verified YOURE real and a valid # for scammers to bill to, screw with and play with your credit... Good luck. Hope not for your sake...

If you don't recognize... don't return stuff.. And if someone asks "is this... " or "how are you? "...DONT say "DON or LINDA"..or you're doing "OK"...because then they have your voice taped agreeing to god knows what against you.. Orders, banking.... Etc..

And there are apps giving people fake caller ids.. And youll never know...

originally posted by: tinner07
Is there some sort of scam out there dialing random phone numbers?

Yes. In fact I've received quite a few of these calls myself over the past week. Scammers have been using spoofed phone numbers to call people, and when someone answers, they'll have an automated system saying something like "Can you hear me?". When you say "yes", your voice is recorded, and the yes is used to sign up for various things. This has been going on for a while now.

The Federal Communications Commission is warning consumers about a new scam that is hooking consumers with just one word: Yes.

According to the FCC, the scam begins as soon as a person answers the phone. A recorded voice or an actual person asks: "Can you hear me?" And the consumer responds, "Yes."

"The caller then records the consumer's 'Yes' response and thus obtains a voice signature. This signature can later be used by the scammers to pretend to be the consumer and authorize fraudulent charges via telephone,"
Source

If anyone else calls you saying you called them, inform them of this scam and then just ignore their number in the future. You'll probably start receiving calls from their number, expect it's not actually them. If anyone says "Can you hear me?" as soon as you answer, just hang up.

I found out about this because I noticed I had missed calls from a phone number 1 off from mine. I tried calling it but nobody answered, so I sent a text. The person replied to me via text that they've been getting a bunch of scam calls from incremental numbers, like 3185, 3186, 3187, etc. Sure enough, I started getting random phone calls from incremental numbers too.

a reply to: tinner07

I think they are testing to see which are active numbers or not. They buy and sell them in batches for telemarketing.

Powerhouse (the utility exchange BS) is the WORST. Once they have your number everyone seems to get it.

Powerhouse Utilities (Pty) Limited provides utilities management and consultancy services. The company was founded in 2000 and is based in Sandton, South Africa

Well that all sounds scary. Hopefully nothing will come from it and no more answering my phone for anybody

Definitely spoofing.

We got a call here one day a couple years ago from a woman here in our town wanting to know why we called her house. I told her no one here called her. She claimed our number came up on her caller ID and therefore obviously someone at our house called.

She demanded to know our name and wanted to know who all was at home that could have called. I nearly laughed at her. No way was I going to give the names of people in our house. We only have one phone here and the handset was right next to me on the endtable where it always is. Youngest was at school. Middle daughter doesn't live here any longer. Oldest was sitting across the room watching a movie if I recall correctly. Husband was at work and had the only cell phone which is an entirely different number anyway.

She just wouldn't relent on insisting we called her and no amount of me trying to explain that there was no way possible that anyone at our house did so convinced her. I ended up hanging up on her as she wasn't listening anyway.

If you just do a google search on numbers that call that you don't recognize, you'll often find that even if it seems like it's a normal residential number, there are often complaints that the number is being used by scammers and telemarketing spammers to trick people into picking up.