Spoofing Caller ID With Spoofcard

Caller ID and spoofing have been in the news lately and a major provider of calling cards for spoofing Caller ID systems, SpoofCard, was mentioned in a recent major motion picture, Untraceable. We have all heard about throw away cell phones and blocking our own Caller ID information for our outbound calls, but using a spurious phone number for our regular phones is a rather recent innovation made possible by technology. Caller ID is known as Caller Identification or CID, but should be known more properly as Calling Number Identification or CNID. It is a service offered by telephone companies that uses the information logged into your account and tied to your phone number (land line, VoIP, or cell phone). The caller’s phone number is transmitted to the recipient’s phone while ringing and if the name that matches the phone number is available and the recipient’s phone has the Caller ID service available the name will show up on the display as well.

Caller ID has been used to track down prank phone calls, to avoid collection calls, telemarketers and other intrusions into your home or business life. With the advent of spoofing companies this can lead to callers becoming more evasive in the interest of reaching their intended call recipients. I am aware of instances of credit collection agencies using spoofed caller ID to get people to answer their phones. It is a way to get around a person’s ability to not receive calls from blocked or private numbers.

Spoofing Caller ID has long been used by private detectives and law enforcement in tracking down fugitives and to make sure that their sting operations are not exposed. Police will call a list of people that are wanted on warrants and told that they have won a prize and need to come to a particular location to pick it up. If the phone number on the caller ID read New York Police Department they would not get very many people caught up in their sting.

If you are not interested in spoofing Caller ID you can still block your number from other people seeing it on their own Caller ID. Under FCC rules are telephone providers must offer a uniform, free and simple per line blocking and unblocking methods. This is different than have an unpublished number. Your number will still appear in local directories and online if you have chosen not to pay the premium price for an unlisted number. Phone companies make a fortune on the unlisted or private number fees they get from consumers.