Caller Identification, or “Caller ID,” allows you to identify a caller before you answer your telephone. It is sometimes offered as an optional service by landline and wireless telephone companies, and may cost an additional monthly fee (fees vary by phone company). A caller’s number and/or name are displayed on your phone (if your phone has this feature).
Caller ID service, however, is susceptible to fraud. Scammers use a practice known as Caller ID Spoofing.
Caller ID spoofing is the practice of causing the telephone network to display a number on the recipient's caller ID that is not that of the actual originating station. The term is commonly used to describe situations in which the motivation is considered malicious by the speaker or writer.
Caller ID spoofing can make a call appear to have come from any phone number the caller wishes. Because of the high trust people tend to have in the Caller ID system, spoofing can call the system's value into question.
Scammers use this method to collect sensitive information such as your bank account or other financial account numbers, your social security number, your date of birth or your mother’s maiden name. Some will sometimes use caller ID spoofing to make it appear as though they are calling from your bank, credit card company, or even a government agency.
By obtaining this information, you could become a victim of identity theft or have funds removed from your bank account and your credit card used without your authorization.
Tips for Consumers:
• Don’t give out personal information in response to an incoming call. Identity thieves are clever – they often pose as representatives of banks, credit card companies, creditors, or government agencies to get people to reveal their account numbers, Social Security numbers, mother’s maiden names, passwords and other identifying information.
• If you get an inquiry from a company or government agency seeking personal information, don’t provide it. Instead, hang up and call the phone number on your account statement, in the phone book, or on the company’s or government agency’s website to find out if the entity that supposedly called you actually needs the requested information from you.
• Please let the FCC know about ID spoofers by calling 1-888-CALL-FCC or filing a complaint at fcc.gov/complaints.
Consumers should never give personal of financial information to any company calling and asking for such. Hang up, and then call the company yourself, with a number previously provided to you, and ask if they are seeking personal or financial information and why. More than likely they are not and by doing so, you’ve prevented yourself from being a victim of a scam.
Valid reasons to spoof caller ID:
There are legitimate reasons for modifying the caller ID sent with a call.
1. Calls from a large company, especially with multiple branches, where sending the main number makes sense. For example, a hospital might have the primary number 555-1000, with perhaps 250 lines inside the main building, and another 100 at the clinic five miles away. While some of the phones will have "555-10XX" numbers, many won't have any identifiable line. Having all calls "come from" 555-1000 lets the recipients know it's a hospital call.
2. A company with a Toll-free telephone number may prefer the Caller ID to display this number.
3. A Call center making calls on behalf of many clients may prefer the Caller ID to display a different number for each client's calls.
4. Commercial answering-service bureaus which forward calls back out to a subscriber's cell phone, when both parties would prefer the Caller ID to display the original caller's information.
5. Most calling-card companies display the Caller ID of the calling-card user to the called party.
6. Business owners have been known to use Caller ID spoofing to display their business number on the Caller ID display when calling from outside the office (for example, on a mobile phone).
7. Skype users can assign a Caller ID number in order to prevent their Skype-Out calls being screened by the called party (the default Skype Caller ID in the USA is 0000123456).
8. Google Voice displays its users' Google Voice number when they place calls through the service using their landline or cell phone.