Is the name displayed in Caller-ID transmitted with the phone number from the originating switch? Or does the destination switch use the transmitted phone number to look up the name in a data base?
I'm receiving telemarketing calls with a suspicious caller-id. It's a dumb robocaller that doesn't wait for the completion of my answering machine's outgoing message, so I'm not getting enough of the message to identify the source. But it seems to be some kind of loan scam, talking about lowering my interest rate.
The number displayed on my caller id is in my local exchange (859-987-xxxx). The displayed name is the name of a local horse farm. The directory listing for the farm does not list that phone number. A reverse lookup in phonelookup.com (the most reliable free source I've found) just says "unpublished landline".
I've thought of several possible explanations:
The name and number are correct. The horse farm is branching into the telemarketing business. The phone number is one of many they own, and just not listed under their name. This seems a little unusual, but I guess it's possible.
The number is correct, but the name is wrong. The name is being looked up in a database, and it's out of date. In this case, the originating and destination switch are the same. A little unlikely, because this is a small area, and I don't think there are any local telemarketing businesses.
The name and number are both spoofed. I'm not sure why a telemarketer would use the name of a horse farm name for spoofing, but if the name is transmitted from the origin, this seems most likely.
The number is spoofed, and the name is being looked up at the destination end. If that's how caller-id works, this seems like the most likely scenario. Even though I can't find a directory that links the number to the farm, it may be linked in a database somewhere.
One interesting item, maybe just a coincidence, is that the displayed number is identical to mine except for the last digit. I'm wondering if the spoofing system is intentionally generating a number close to the target number to make it look more authentic.