Is There a Way to Identify a Spoofed Caller’s Identity?
Visit our case studies page to get an idea of how Rexxfield can help you positively identify the individuals behind harassing, anonymous, online or, mobile phone spoofed calls or email messages.
What is a Spoofed Call?
Spoofing is when a scammer deliberately changes the information sent to your Caller ID screen to camouflage their true identity. Scammers commonly use “next-door neighbour spoofing”, which indicates that an inbound phone call is coming from a local or regional number, or they spoof a number from a firm or a federal government agency that you may already recognize and trust. If you accept the call, the scammers use scripted lies to trick you into giving away your bank account, credit card, PayPal, or other personal information.
How to uncover a spoofed number
To find out if a number is spoofed, you can search the reverse phone lookup for the number. If there are no results, it’s a big red flag. This might mean that the number used to call you is not a real number. Try to return the phone call. If it’s out of service, you can be confident it was a spoofed call.
You can also type the number in Google. If it’s used for scams, it might be listed on the internet.
How To Stop Spoofing Calls
Even FCC’s commissioners are growing incensed with robo-calls. The FCC announced that they would act this year if carriers don’t do enough to fight robo-calls.
If you get spoof calls, there are a few things you can do to stop them from coming in.
- Consider call-blocking services that block VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) calls and text messages. These services help prevent scammers from using a spoofed number to call you. But you can also block legitimate Skype calls etc.
- Block the offending numbers; this blocks the scammers from calling from the specific numbers you blocked. However, they can always call again using a different number.
How To Catch Spoof Call Scammers
Tracing a spoofed phone number and positively identifying the scammer at the other end is not easy. However, Rexxfield Cyber Investigation Services has developed sophisticated tools that, in many cases, can successfully uncover these criminals. The techniques we use for identifying call-spoofing criminals are similar to those we developed for identifying anonymous Twitter users and harassing email senders, among other Internet crime cases. Some spoofing services permit the anonymous caller or text sender to receive replies. In such instances, Rexxfield investigators can commonly trace the spoofed SMS message and also positively determine the individual responsible for the spoofing harassment, even out-of-court.
These situations are mostly harassment cases. Because cyberbullies and scammers intend to hurt someone, they need to engage in a conversation. This allows you to send out as well as receive text messages. If the call spoofing technology is used by the scammer and does not receive response messages from you, that makes the case more difficult. But all is not lost: we can help your lawyers identify the antagonist through court subpoenas. Better yet, if there are criminal elements to the messages, we can help you persuade law enforcement to get involved. If the police investigate, you do not have to pay private lawyers.
Tracing a spoofed phone number through teleprovider
In other cases, tracing a spoofed phone number can be done through your telephone company. Sometimes telephone companies can trace spoof calls back to their origin. This, however, can be a timely process and does not always provide correct results. Contact us if you need professional help in solving internet or mobile phone crimes
Read more about how to find the anonymous sender of an email.
Or an anonymous Twitter user or person posting or blogging on the internet.
