Whose caller ID shows up on a forwarded call?

[Stephen Musial]

We have an area code 347 number calling us 8 or 9 times a day. Either nobody picks up or they say they're from ADT. I tell them we have an alarm and not to call back. 2 hours later, the phone rings again. Total boiler room operation as you can hear 10 people in the background doing the same thing.

Thanks to U-Verse, I can forward their particular number to another number - right now it's going to Time & Temperature. So my question: does anyone know whose number shows up when a call is forwarded - the original number calling or the number that has been forwarded.

If it's the original number, I'm going to change the forwarding number to the Attorney General's office.

[Matt Meiser]

With Frontier, its the original number.

[Scott T Smith]

It could be a VOIP number too; more difficult to trace (but doable).

[Jason Roehl]

Ask to have them take your name off their call list. Or sign up on your state's Do Not Call list.

[Chris Damm]

Ask to have them take your name off their call list. Or sign up on your state's Do Not Call list.

That works about as well as my wife yelling for it to stop snowing!:rolleyes:

[Ben Silver]

That works about as well as my wife yelling for it to stop snowing!:rolleyes:

Actually, if you sign up on the Federal DNC then they can face significant fines . . . if you report them. No report, no fine, so you have to do something.

[Matt Meiser]

Criminals obey the do not call list about as much as gun laws...

[Phil Thien]

Actually, if you sign up on the Federal DNC then they can face significant fines . . . if you report them. No report, no fine, so you have to do something.

Businesses can't sign-up, I don't think. Well, they can sign up, but their listing in the database can be ignored, I believe.

On our VOIP system I typically just forward them to an 800 # I find for whatever they're selling (in this case I'd find a corporate 800 # for ADT). Confuses the crap out of them.

[Jason Roehl]

Prior to Indiana instituting their DNC list, we were asking to have our name taken off the list every time a telemarketer called. After about 2-3 years of this, the number of calls we were getting had declined significantly. Then when Indiana formed their DNC list, I got on that--calls dropped to basically nothing. I never got on the Federal DNC list because what I had read about it vs. the Indiana DNC list at the time was that the Indiana law was much stronger. A lot of this was prior to Caller ID. Now that we almost exclusively use cell phones, if I don't recognize the number, they can talk to my voicemail. If it's business related, I'll get back to them soon. I pay for the phone, so I'm going to use it how I want...

[Larry Whitlow]

Couple of years ago we were receiving calls every couple of minutes -- 100's during the day clogging our VM not to mention irritating as heck. Noticed many of the calls were repeat numbers and managed to track one back to a medical office. They said my number was listed as the local Wal-Mart pharmacy fax. Turns out Wal-Mart had slipped a digit or two and published my home phone as their pharmacy fax.

Not a scam like you are experiencing, but a real PITA.

[Matt Meiser]

That would have been easy to fix by hooking up a fax and calling a the doctor and telling them you are about to start calling thier patients to let them know their doctor was releasing their medical records to you. At least that's how I got the health department to stop faxing me death certificates. And the power company to stop collection calls on to the previous owner of my number (turns out I could get their information from the automated system after it called me!)

[Jerome Stanek]

Years ago when everyone had landlines the number for the unemployment office had a smudge from the printers and it looked like a 3 inseat of an 8 and people were calling my number all the time.

[Larry Whitlow]

That would have been easy to fix by hooking up a fax and calling a the doctor and telling them you are about to start calling thier patients to let them know their doctor was releasing their medical records to you. At least that's how I got the health department to stop faxing me death certificates. And the power company to stop collection calls on to the previous owner of my number (turns out I could get their information from the automated system after it called me!)

Wasn't the doctor's offices, it was WalMart that made the error. When I contacted them (WalMart) I did in fact mention potential HIPAA violation. The problem was fixed right away.

[Myk Rian]

Ask to have them take your name off their call list. Or sign up on your state's Do Not Call list.
You do know that neither of those do any good, right?

[Harry Hagan]

I've heard that on a computer generated call, if the computer detects a fax machine answering; it will delete the number from its database. It might be worth a try.:D

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Can you forward that number back to their number :-)

That said, the total scam artists use fake caller-id information when they call you.

[Jason Roehl]

You do know that neither of those do any good, right?

Read my second post above--it took consistency over a period of time, but it did work for us to greatly reduce the volume of telemarketer calls. The Indiana DNC list is very good, and our state AG is very good at going after violations, so joining the list here essentially ended the remaining telemarketing calls to our home. We've since moved, and never got a land line for our current home, and the few telemarketing calls on the cell phone are easily ignored, so I've never bothered to sign the cell phones up.

[Phil Thien]

I've heard that on a computer generated call, if the computer detects a fax machine answering; it will delete the number from its database. It might be worth a try.:D

But they simultaneously add you to all the fax lists ("get health insurance for only $9.99 a month!!!").

[Matt Meiser]

Back in the day when legitimate companies were allowed to make calls it might have been affected. Now its mostly scammers making the calls. Don't think breaking an extra law is going to matter one bit to them.

[Jerome Stanek]

Read my second post above--it took consistency over a period of time, but it did work for us to greatly reduce the volume of telemarketer calls. The Indiana DNC list is very good, and our state AG is very good at going after violations, so joining the list here essentially ended the remaining telemarketing calls to our home. We've since moved, and never got a land line for our current home, and the few telemarketing calls on the cell phone are easily ignored, so I've never bothered to sign the cell phones up.

The problem is that they call with different numbers. Some a spoofed so you can't track them down

[Duane Meadows]

And it may be a legit phone number they give, doesn't mean it's their phone number. The call locations tend to move also... once the authorities find their location, they move. Ain't technology wonderful? Doesn't even have to be from any single location!

Google the "credit card services scam"... they have more tricks than you can count and any DNC list won't help. They are even calling cell phones now.

[Rudy Ress]

Our number always goes to the answering machine (for screening purposes). At the beginning of the customized announcement I have the tone sequence that the phone company has for disconnected numbers, there is then a 2 -3 second pause, then the regular announcement comes on about leaving a message and phone number, etc. This has drastically cut down on both computer generated calls as well as person-generated ones.