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This is one of the more recent telephone scams that are going around right now that have caused me to actually answer a call that I would not have otherwise.

I live in a small town, so when I see a number pop up on my caller ID that is from my area code and has our local prefix, I'm much more likely to answer it. In fact, a neighbor just told me at church this morning that just this week he received one of these calls from "me." Or at least showed to be my number on his caller ID.

So just a word to the wise on something else to watch out for, if you weren't already aware of it.

This year has seen a spike in the practice dubbed “neighbor spoofing” — scammers and telemarketers using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) software to mimic your area code and three-number prefix to make it appear as if an incoming call is originating from near your own location. The idea, security experts say, is that you’re more likely to answer an unfamiliar number if it looks close to yours — thinking it could be coming from your doctor’s office, or your child or grandchild’s school.

https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/ ... ng-fd.html

Started around here early this year... drives me nuts. Even long time charities we have donated to come up as local. It's becoming rare to get an out of town or state solicitor in these parts.

If it's not important enough for somebody to leave a voice mail, then it wasn't worth answering in the first place.

It's unfortunately too easy to spoof phone numbers. And with the way telephony works, the recipient's carrier will never know if the originating call actually came from the actual number or from somewhere else. There are a ton of VoIP carriers out there that allow their clients to customize the caller ID number without any sort of enforcement on who the custom number belongs to. Most big carriers let their customers use a custom caller ID only if the phone number they're impersonating belongs to them. It's useful for businesses with multiple offices, so outgoing calls will always say the same phone number to simplify callback from their customers. I remember one time I was setting up an Asterisk phone system for my parents. It was the first time I played with that sort of thing, and I wasn't quite sure what settings to put where. Then I accidentally discovered a mistake when I called my cell phone and saw a caller id of just the number 1. Who knew that would have worked. I fixed it and now the caller ID says the right phone number, whether they are using the main account or the backup account. I was thinking about playing some fun tricks on my friends now that I know how to spoof caller IDs, but I decided against it as it is a federal crime, even though I know I would never get caught.

As an aside, when I moved to Texas, I never got my cell phone number changed. That way, I know that if I get a phone call from some random number in my old area code, it must be an unwanted call, in which case I just hang up. Also, lately T-Mobile has started warning their customers if an incoming call is legitimate call by using the CNAME "Scam Likely" if the phone number doesn't come back with a listed name. That's kind of a bonus.

I went to a lot of trouble to get nomorobo installed at my house. It hasn't been needed in months because of the switch to local area spoofing. I've been conned a couple of times because we are in the middle of medical activities and a lot of the medical offices come in the same way on the caller iD - private caller with a local area code.

I've taught myself never so say the word "yes" when answering. That is part of another "cramming" scam on your phone bill. But several of the more recent calls have featured a caller with a very strong, almost impossible to understand Asian-Indian accent. Several of them have been also tested by me for their awareness of American English four letter words.

Having the carrier help by validating that the number is real in their system would definitely help.

I use an app on my iPhone called “Hiya Caller ID and Block by Hiya” which helps to identify SCAM/SPAM phone calls, and if you discover that a number is a SPAM caller and they’re not in the Hiya database already, you can add them, along with comments about the call, what the caller said or was trying to sell, etc.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hiya-ca ... 99874?mt=8

"Mr number" works for blocking spam calls.

Anyone who is approaching 65 or older will get a ton of these calls this time of year. I think Medicare sells our phone numbers.

Liberty wrote:Anyone who is approaching 65 or older will get a ton of these calls this time of year. I think Medicare sells our phone numbers.

Considering that many of us probably registered for the Federal "do not call" data base, that is more than a little ironic. HHS helps unscrupulous businesses, some of them obviously foreign companies thwart Federal law.

My VoIP service supports NoMoRobo, but this neighbor-spoofing is getting through more often recently.

The Annoyed Man wrote:I use an app on my iPhone called “Hiya Caller ID and Block by Hiya” which helps to identify SCAM/SPAM phone calls, and if you discover that a number is a SPAM caller and they’re not in the Hiya database already, you can add them, along with comments about the call, what the caller said or was trying to sell, etc.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hiya-ca ... 99874?mt=8

You may actually be blocking the number of one of your neighbors. The spoofers use real numbers in your area code. Try calling the spoofed number and the poor person that answers has no idea of what you are calling them for. On an iphone you can block any caller anyhow but be careful as you may be blocking a neighbor. I wish there was a way to stop these people.

The concept of neighbors and phone numbers being related is a dying artifact. Cell phone numbers are pulled from pools and you can typically ask for whatever. I got two new numbers added to my account a few months ago, in the same first-six number range as my phone number, and I've had my number for 15 years.

I have never owned a land line phone. Never used the bundled landline service that came with TV so long ago either.

Nobody has ever called me from my "local" prefix, so I can just ignore it by default.

I've been running into this quite a bit lately. I had somebody call me up the other day irate because "I" was calling them. Now I just ignore phone calls that come from my area code and pre fix since I also have an out of area number. I figure they can leave a message if they're really trying to reach me.

If I don't recognize the number, they can leave a message. Or not.