What is Spoofing?

Spoofing is when a caller deliberately falsifies or alters the information shown on your caller ID display to disguise their identity. Spoofing can be used in a positive manner by people trying to hide their personal telephone numbers while making business calls; however, spoofing can also be used maliciously by scam callers to trick unsuspecting victims into sending money or sharing their personal information.

Scammers often use “neighbor spoofing” to make it appear as though they are calling you from a local number. One way they achieve this is by spoofing a number from a company or a government agency that you may already know and trust. Scammers tend to switch spoofed numbers often to avoid being blocklisted.

When you answer a spoof call, scammers will commonly read off scripts to try to deceive you to steal your money or valuable personal information, which can be used in fraudulent activity.

How Do Phone Numbers Get Spoofed?

Scam callers have a variety of ways that they target telephone numbers to use for spoofed calls. Scam callers will commonly target certain phone numbers by…

• Buying information about phone numbers from data brokers and other businesses.
• Taking note of individuals that answer and respond to scam calls.
• Skimming social media pages and websites to find phone numbers that are more likely to be trusted and known by potential victims.

How Can I Avoid Spoof Scams?

You may not be able to tell right away if an incoming call is being spoofed. It is imperative that you and other callers are cautious when answering calls, especially if the caller is asking for sensitive, personal information or has a suspicious caller ID.

• Try to avoid answering calls from callers flagged as “Unknown”.
  

  Note: Check out this article to discover how you can use Stratus' Allow / Block tool to automatically block unknown callers.

   
• If you answer a suspicious call, hang up immediately.
• If you are prompted to press a button to stop receiving calls by a caller or recording, hang up the call instead. Scammers will use this trick to identify callers that are responsive.
• Do not answer any questions, especially if the answers to those questions are “yes” and “no”.
• If you are being pressured to give sensitive, personal information, it is recommended to use caution and hang up the call if you are suspicious of the caller. 
• If you receive a call from someone claiming to represent a company or a government agency, hang up and call the phone number on your account statement, in the phone book, or on the company's/government agency's website to verify the authenticity of the request. Sensitive requests for things like billing, payments, and account changes are usually handled through written statements that are sent by mail.

My SpectrumVoIP Number is Being Spoofed

If you suspect that your phone number is being spoofed and a malicious caller is placing calls to other people as you, there are several different things you can try to address this issue.

• File a complaint with the FCC and FTC using these links:
  • Submit a Request – FCC Complaints
  • Report Fraud - FTC Complaints
• Consider having a warning message implemented that tells your callers about the spoofing.
• If you are still seeing signs that your phone number is being spoofed after more than a week, consider contacting our team to have your phone number changed. 
  

  Quick Tip: Some scam callers will move on to other numbers to spoof after a few days. It is recommended to wait a week or so before considering changing phone numbers. 

  To learn more about the information our team will need to help order or exchange phone numbers, please review this article.