Like today I got a bot call from a number, then a person called me from that number asking if I had called THEM because they had a missed call from me…
EDIT:Thank you to all who answered! I understand now.
In: Technology
VOIP works kind of like snail mail: you can make a phone call and give any number as the callback number, the same way you could send someone a letter, and write a return address on it that isn’t yours.
Do you get a lot of calls that disconnect as soon as you say “hello?” Do you get lots of voicemail with dead air?
To my knowledge these types of calls are used to determine if the phone number they dialed is in service. When you say “hello” they can verify the number (somehow, but I don’t know specifics. Probably voice recognition AI of some sort).
Once it’s verified they can do two things:
Sell your phone number to other scanners, and/or spoof your number to call others. Spoofing a number is manipulation of the caller identification data, so it appears to be something different than the actual number. It’s easy to do – years ago I had software that allowed me to do exactly that.
The caller ID system is based on trust. When a phone central connect to a neighboring central to forward a call it may send a caller ID identifying the origin of the call. There is no way for the receiving phone central to verify this called ID at all so they have to trust that the system is not abused. Most medium size companies have their own phone central these days and needs to be trusted.
They are not calling from that number, they are calling and spoofing the caller ID. It’s a pretty common practice, to avoid call blockers. The deployment or STIR/SHAKEN in the US will enable phone companies to block these practices, but few customers are pushing to have the standard activated on their lines. It will also block phone calls from poorly configured businesses, and phone companies don’t rush to throw business customers under the bus..
A good way to think about it is this, someone lies and tells you their name is tom, but when you shout tom at them someone else who is actually named tom answers but not the one who told you their name. Your phone doesn’t know who us calling it, so it asks, if the other end lies and says it’s someone else the phone doesn’t know any better, but when you try to call it back it goes to the actual number.
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