Just now the phone rang, and the CID showed *my own name and
> number*. I let it go to the answering machine (we do call
> screening). No message was left.
>
> It was on the home phone, a Comcast Xfinity VOIP number.
>
> ISTR this happened once before about a year ago.
>
> How or why would a telemarketer/scammer do this ?
To get you to answer the phone: after all, your own name and number are a lot more familiar to you than anyone else's, and so sending it to you makes it more likely that some people will answer the phone because they assume the display is showing their info for a reason.
I suggest you write to your Congressman and Senators, and tell them that you want them to pass a law making it illegal to falsify Caller ID information.
It's ALREADY against the law. What can passing more laws accomplish?
Specifically, the Truth 111-331> It shall be unlawful for any person within the United States,
111-331> in connection with any telecommunications service or
111-331> IP-enabled voice service, to cause any caller identification
111-331> service to knowingly transmit misleading or inaccurate caller
111-331> identification information with the intent to defraud, cause
111-331> harm, or wrongfully obtain anything of value, unless such
111-331> transmission is exempted pursuant to paragraph (3)(B).
Read this at , or the entirety of 47 USC sec 227 at .
Well, I am not a lawyer, so I can't argue the law. However, I doubt that the current law(s) have any meaningful teeth in them, or the problem wouldn't be occuring.
To be fair, we haven't determined whether the OP was called by someone "with the intent to defraud, cause harm, or wrongfully obtain anything of value". Once we determine that, then we know if the call was illegal.
The problem is that the average person receiving a call with faked CID has no way to find out where the call actually came from, nor even to give that info to law enforcement. The Custom Calling feature Call Trace is supposed to do the latter, but every telco I know about refuses to do their part of the job, since they regard junk calls of all types as paying traffic and refuse to cooperate in stopping it.
Thus, if there's any law whose passage can help, it needs to be directed at compelling the victim's dial tone provider to cooperate in the tracing process -- or possibly at compelling telcos that serve businesses to authenticate (and if necessary change) the caller ID the business's PBX sends out.
By itself, soliciting to induce a sale of goods or services is not fraud, does not cause harm, nor seek to obtain wrongfully something of value; and thus is not prohibited by that law. Often it is called "advertising."
Actually, by providing a false caller-ID, the caller indeed act wrongly.
A business that posts a sign "established" 1965 when in fact the business is only a year old is lying. It may be a minor lie, but it still is a false statement of fact.
* ** *
Actually, telephone soliciting in violation of the Do Not Call laws _is_ indeed illegal.
The lame-sounding letters I get from the Pennsylvania Att'y General's office explaining why they can't do anything about No-Call List violations any more all cite movement to offshore locations and use of VOIP by telemarketers.
John Reiser wrote: :>> [fake CallerID] is ALREADY against the law. What can passing more laws accomplish? :>> :>> Specifically, the Truth in Caller ID Act of 2009, aka Public Law :>> 111-331
:By itself, soliciting to induce a sale of goods or services is not fraud, :does not cause harm, nor seek to obtain wrongfully something of value; :and thus is not prohibited by that law. Often it is called "advertising."
Sending me fake CID so I answer the phone obtains something of value: my time.
I think the situation described does not fit that legislation - someone is causing a caller identification service to UN-knowingly transmit misleading/innacurate caller identification information.
Well, I have to log into my provider and spend an annoying 30 seconds doing it.
But occasionally I go to my call logs to look for a call that's been redirected--and occasionally I see one. So I do get a smile out of it if nothing else.
(a) put teeth in it, (b) make it a crime unto itself, and (c) allow private lawsuits.
I propose a different law:
It shall be unlawful for any person within the United States, in connection with any telecommunications service or IP-enabled voice service, to cause any caller identification service to knowingly (that's the *person* knowing, not the *service* knowing) transmit misleading or inaccurate caller identification information for any or none of the following reasons:
(a) as a joke, or (b) not as a joke, or (c) for free, or (d) for pay, or (e) to cause the recipient to answer the phone, or (f) to cause the recipient to not answer the phone, or (g) to attempt sell a product or service, or (h) to attempt to communicate advertising, or (i) to attempt solicit a donation or contribution, or (j) to attempt to get the recipient to vote, or to vote in a particular way, (k) to impersonate any person, including government authorities or the recipient him/her self, or (l) to impersonate a non-law-enforcement-officer (cops beware!), or (m) to prove you could do it, or (n) to prove you could not do it, or (o) to collect a debt, or (p) to not collect a debt
The minimum penalty shall be $1,000 multiplied by the number of calls raised to the 10th power, and doubled for each clause (a) thru (p) that applies, plus confiscation of any telephone equipment owned or leased by the offender.
Anyone receiving a call with forged caller-id may sue for 10% of the penalty, with the remainder going to the state.
It shall be illegal for a person convicted of the crime above to attempt to originate a phone call from anywhere (*NO* exception for other countries) to a destination other than 911 (*NO* exception for countries where the emergency number is other than '911') for a period of one year times the number of phone calls made (during which time the offender is on probation and should not be allowed to leave the country anyway).
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