Spoofed calls that appear to come from AppleCare or VISA or...Tracing the actual care

[Susan1852]

We all deal with spoofed calls from disconnected numbers.  But what happens when the number is a legitimate number for the company but when I contact the actual company it turns out they didn't call me.  I have been pursuing trying to shut down calls from another group of scammers and was told by Bandwidth (one of the providers for these scammers) that spoofed calls like the ones I described can be traced by my telephone provider, Verizon.  I haven't been successful in getting answers from Verizon about this but thought I'd put it out onto the forum community about getting Verizon to trace these spoofed calls.  According to Bandwidth it is, indeed, illegal to spoof calls.  If we can get our providers to pursue them and help us tke them to court maybe we wouldn't have to resort to ignoring calls (which I can't do for various reasons), blocking numbers (which don't work because they just switch), etc.  Any thoughts?

[jonjones1 · Accepted solution]

Unfortunately there is no incentive to pursue these phone spoofing scammers.

yes there is a law here but since the telephone breakup smaller phone companies have sprang up and they get their connection from Verizon and other phone services.

they may know what is transpiring but the call of the money is what they hear the loudest. Couple that with many located offshore where our laws do not apply so it’s harder to prosecute these companies.

verizon makes the best of first getting paid to give access, then they garner revenue from having consumers and businesses pay for blocking services.

many companies and individuals are now finding their active lines are being used to generate their drek. When a person then calls back bang the poor consumer is being harassed.

10% of all these scammer calls are answered and they can sell their goods or services.

if people refused to purchase, this would all end.

[Susan1852]

Verizon uses *57 to trace back to t he actual caller not just the spoofed number. BUT THEY WILL ONLY DO IT AGAINST THREATENING CALLS THAT HAVE BEEN REPEATED ENOUGH THAT THERE IS A POLICE CASE.  But the technology is there even if they aren't willing to use it for scams/spams etc.  I have multiple concerns about these phone calls

1.  Some of them spoof the actual company so if you check the number against the list of numbers for the company it is correct.  Then when they call back you think it is legitimate

2. The baby boomers are entering into an age (I am one of them on the tail end of the generation) when we are becoming more and more vulnerable to scamming calls.  And some of them sound so very real. Even though I was perfectly aware that the call from an officer "representing social security" was a scam I was almost swayed by the way they handled the call

3. The calls are harassing and to try to block them doesn't work because they just use another number.  And why should we have to either ignore or block calls?.  As you say, it just provides money to Verizon.

4.  As you say some of the spoofed numbers are taken from legitimate customers who have no idea their number was spoofed until they get calls from irate people.  

We need to ask our congress people to get our telephone providers to pursue these callers, to get the state department to make arrangements with countries where some of these calls originate, to get our federal and local governments to pursue these people and put them in jail.  I have spent hours contacting everyone I can think of to get someone interested in some calls that I think are potentially very dangerous.  NO ONE WAS INTERESTED.  Contact your representatives