Q.: Caller-ID fraud -- grounds for class actions? [telecom]

Apr 26, 2012 1 Replies

What with all the misleading and fraudulently posted Caller-ID signs on the one hand (000-000-0000 or 800-421-0000 or your very own phone number, etc.), which of course results from the phone companies' unwillingness to ensure only valid information is transmitted as Caller-ID data, and the ILECs' and CLECs' insistence on charging extra ($5 to $10, or even more) for transmitting those very likely phony phone numbers to a subscriber, how long, I must wonder, before there's a class action law suit against the phone companies for recovery of fraudulently collected Caller-ID fees (along with penalty, perhaps)?



The newest vish*, it seems, is malefactors' transmitting, as Caller-ID data, the names and matching central inbound phone numbers of major US banks: cf.


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Cheers, -- tlvp


In tlvp writes: [snip]

Just a minor technical correction to this. The "Caller ID" that's "sent forward" from the caller/central office/spoof contains only the _number_. The recipient's telco (whether traditional central office or "something else") takes that phone number, does a data base dip [a], gets the associated name info, and then passes both pieces the rest of the way.

[a] and as we know all too well, even with legit phone numbers those databases have lots of issues.

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