Imagine this. You sit down for dinner or in front of your TV set – and then your phone rings. It appears to come from your neighborhood. Or even from a company like Microsoft or Google. So you answer it – and realize this call comes from the other side of the world.
Yes, you get it right. You just became a victim of the so called “number spoofing” (faking the number that appears on your caller ID). Lately, this tactics has been very popular with scammers. For one simple reason. Thanks to spoofing, scammers can not only push you to answer the call, but they are also hard to track down.
And it gets even worse. Since a “spoofed” number is usually just a beginning. In most cases, it’s connected to other popular spam tactics (like one ring phone scam or pranks). And here’s the surprising fact: spoofing a number isn’t difficult at all.
In this post we cover:
Spoofing is easy. And legal, as well
In the past, phone hackers trying to mask a phone number behind someone else’s used so called “orange boxes”, a fairly complex hardware. Nowadays it’s much easier. Literally anybody can use simple solutions like a mobile app, which allows users to mask their real phone number.
And surprisingly again, the spoofing is not illegal, either (as we explained in one of our recent posts). Which is a bad news, since the customer (like yourself) is getting a real raw deal here. Luckily, there is a solution.
–> Read more about neighbor spoofing
Here’s what you can do against neighbor spoofing
Scammers are tricky. And it’s hard to keep pace with them. However, there is something you can rely on – almost everytime they’re using number spoofing tactics, they’re faking their number to look like a neighborhood call. And you can use it against them. Here’s how.
- Get the Should I Answer app.
- Go to Advanced Blocking.
- Find Block numbers by mask and enter your area code.
- Done 🙂
Though not a perfect solution (since when it comes to spoofing, there is no such thing), the Should I Answer app gets pretty close. Because it not only blocks all incoming calls from numbers with the blocked area code, but, in the same time, it doesn’t affect numbers from your Contact list, either.
How does it work? Whenever you receive a call (from a number with blocked area code), the Should I Answer checks if the number is stored in your Contacts. And if it’s not, it blocks it before the spammer even reaches you.
Good luck with fighting spammers! 🙂
-> Get the Should I Answer app FOR YOUR ANDROID
(Not an Android user? Get the app for your iPhone)