My phone number is being used by 3rd party spam/scam

[Ferryboat]

Numerous phone calls from people asking whats up, why I called. Ignored and blew off everyone as no big deal until someone implored me not to hang up and listen.

Told me a that my number was being used by someone overseas as cover and that I needed to contact my carrier and insist on a spam block filter to prevent others from using it. Apparently its being used by a 3rd party.

So contacted carrier asked for a filter. Question is what other measures should I take? Giving up my number which I have had for 20 years would be a issue I wish to avoid.

Any suggestions?

Android system

[TheBlackAdder]

1. They're spoofing everyone's numbers. I get calls from all over, including PD, township, state office

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They're just randomly selecting numbers to use, and they've got auto-dial systems that make tens of millions of calls a day.

They have voice scripts play. The most expensive thing is human interaction. That's why you don't ignore the calls, but instead answer them. They'll still call you regardless if you ignore the call or not. There's advice that if you don't answer the call they won't call you as much, but even if an answering machine or block picks up, their system registers that as a live number to dial or sell to others.

I answer the calls, I have their scripts memorized. I say Hi, place the call on mute, just unmute to answer questions to per-qualify the call and then wait until a live person gets on. I will either keep the phone n mute while they waste 30 seconds of saying hello, or I will play with them and waste their time. The only way you hurt them is by taking human resources away.

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[Ferryboat]

2. They are not calling me, but are calling some guy down the street using my number to look like

Local number.

I get called by those looking to see why I called them. Not really sure what going on.

Person Who explained what was happening said calls were from overseas, English was a second language. He guessed it was originating from Singapore. I have no idea why.
Undoubtedly I'm a borderline luddite with no clue.

[TheBlackAdder]

3. That's what the spoofing is. They come in on an internet system and pretend to be various homes.

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I've had my number spoofed a lot because people will return call me.

They just randomly pick numbers to pretend to be so that you can't call block them anymore. They used to only pick from a certain set of numbers, but NoMoRobo and your phone blocks can stop those, so they moved to the next level and just grab whatever number they feel like. Since a single call center can put out 10-20 million calls a day, the odds yours and my numbers will be used each day is almost a certainty. There are scores of these centers in just a single Indian province.


While their auto-dial systems can call out a large quantity of numbers simultaneously, only a very few of those automated calls actually result in someone answering the call and going through their pre-screening questions. Since India is around 12 hours ahead of us, depending on your time zone, they are working night shift to handle the phone calls. Be the person who ties up their life and stops them from calling someone else. Make if more of a "Fuck You! You've interrupted my day, I'm going to keep you on the phone and fuck with your income numbers." type of call. These call centers have 20-100 people staffed, so it doesn't take much to bog their enterprise down. It's just that most people don't do that.

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[Ferryboat]

4. Soon to retire, perhaps this will be my new sport,

Fucking wirh those who want to give me free money, or other dubious endeavors.

As my father said " those who call you are only interested in getting into your wallet".

[Wicked Blue]

5. We started putting the land line on DND

Do not disturb and the resulting peace and quiet is wonderful. We just check messages and return the real calls. I feel so much less stressed now.