How to Identify if a Prank Call is Harassing or Obscene?

Many times in our life, we receive very annoying prank phone calls. It happened to me several weeks ago. I didn't have a good idea on how to deal with the situtation. Some lessons learned. Since then, I've made more research in stopping prank phone callers.

How to identify if a call is harassing or obscene? In fact, it is pretty easy. No prank callers would be foolish enough to use their home phone or office phones listed in the public directory, it would be so easily to trace them. Most time, these prank phone calls show up as unknown caller, unlisted number, unpublished number, non published number, anonymous caller, cell phone caller, or private numbers.

How to find the unkonwn phone number and eventually find who called you?

(1) Buy a phone with caller ID capability. Most phones sold today have caller ID built-in. You would need to call your phone company, make sure called ID service is enabled. Called IDs identify the phone number (and frequently the name) of who is calling you. Don't pick up phone calls from numbers you don't recognize, let them leave voice mails.

(2) Is the prank caller from a telemarketer? The single most useful tool to stop telemarketers from calling you is placing your number on the Do Not Call Registry. You can place your cell phone and/or landline number on the list through http://www.donotcall.gov (be sure to acknowledge the confirmation email) or call (888) 382-1222 and follow their directions.

All persons with a U.S. phone account are allowed to have their phone numbers placed on the Do Not Call Registry. Please allow 31 days from registration confirmation before telemarketers to cease calling. Registry enrollment is valid for 5 years.

(3) Get an "inbound call blocker". This is a screening tool that allows you to select who you receive phone calls from by giving them a special code along with your phone number. There are also numerous similar products that screen and block inbound calls. Check out some products at http://www.commandcommunications.com/index.php and http://www.privacycorps.com/products/.

If you have no caller IDs or caller ID didn't show the exact phone number, you would need to know exactly when the call was happened, you then need to call your phone company immediately. You should explain the situation to them, The phone company would tell you the phone number called you. If it was a cell phone call, you should see "Wireless Caller" and a phone number on your caller ID with no name.

Some people keep their numbers private in order to prevent public or telemarketers call them, some people want to keep their identity private and the number hard to trace when they make phone calls to others.

How to Trace or Identify Prank Callers? Use Reverse Phone Detective



As soon as you got the phone number (private or wireless), you can find the the information associated with these numbers from Internet. Over 95% of these private or unlisted phone numbers can still be found from "backdoor" phone directories as reviewed by Cell Phone Reverse Lookup Review . If the caller ever used the phone number in his reference such as in paying any bills or shopping anything, his phone number would be in these records. If you are interested in finding out the "Private Number" or the cell phone number, my tips will definitely help you. Be aware of "free cell phone lookup" scams.

As we all know, especially for women, dealing with harassing, continuous, secretive, and obscene phone calls can be very stressful, and sometimes, these calls can be very challenging. Even if some prank phone calls are not as threatening as it sounds, they can cause psychological and emotions stress, sometimes, very inconvenience if you want to stop the calls by turning off the phone.

There are various options available to put an end to these prank phone calls. I will explain some solutions available.

What type of phone calls are generally considered to be harassing and obscene?

(1) If someone calls you and uses rude, threating, or obscene language.

(2) When someone calls you, he then attempted to breathe heavily, or he remains silent after you picked up the phone.

(3) When someone calls you repeatedly and hangs up, he repeats this pattern over and over.

How often do I have to get these calls to consider it as harassment?

Generally speaking, any unwelcome call is a harassing call, however, your telephone company or law enforcement will not take any action unless calls are frequent.

If caller threatens you with specific action of bodily harm to yourself or your family, report the calls immediately to the police department and phone company, the phone company or law enforcement will take prompt action to protect you.

What options do I have when I get harassing calls?

The first thing to do is to call your phone company. This was what I did even I didn't realize it. Different telephone providers have different policies on whether you should call the phone company or the police first. Some phone companies may ask you to call the phone company's local office and explain the problem. Other phone companies may require you to file a formal complaint with local police, have a complaint number, then they will deal with the matter.

Check out with your local phone company is always the first step. You should contact your local phone company and find out what their policy is in matters of harassing calls.

If the threats are serious and your life or property is threatened or if the obscene phone calls are very frequent, then you should call your local police immediately, file a report and provide all details and information. You should also note down dates and times of calls, tell them if the caller sounded male or female and describe his/her voice.

If caller said anything or if there was any background noise then note down what the caller said, what have you noticed on the background noise. If any phone number was displayed on your caller ID you should note that down too - even it said Private Number, Unlisted Number, or Unknown Caller, write this message down.

What does it mean when sometimes my phone rings and there is no one on the line?

Often when you receive frequent hang ups on your phone line it could be that someone is checking to see if you are home or its simply harassment. It could also be calls from telemarketers who use computers for "predictive dialing" to call consumers where the computer dials many phone numbers in a short period of time. When anyone answers, the computer finds a sales representative who is not occupied at that time and connects the call. If all sales reps are busy then consumer may hear only silence. These type of calls are called "abandoned calls."

If you are receiving many abandoned calls in a day, you can call the annoyance department of your local phone company. If these repeated calls are from a malicious individual who is harassing you rather than a telemarketer, the phone company will generally report the number to law enforcement. Make sure you have registered your phone number in the National No Call List.

What options do I have to stop other kinds of unwanted calls?

Your phone company offers many services to avoid unwanted calls.

Call Your Phone company be Enabling Call Screen (*60) Service: You probable don't know, at most phone providers, your phone can be programmed to reject calls from selected numbers with a service called Call Screen Service(Phone companies might use different names). Call Screen Service - screen the calls of course.

With this service, when a caller calls you, instead of ringing on your line, these calls are routed to a recording at the phone company and tells the caller you will not take the call.

With Call Screen, you can also program your telephone to reject calls from the number of last person who called. This allows you to block calls even if you do not know the phone number (but your phone company knows the number). Most phone companies charge a monthly fee for this service, it is not free, you can ask the phone company terminate it when you are not going to use it in the future.

However, a determined annoying phone caller can use another phone number (or use calling cards) to bypass the block. As you can see Call Screen is not a foolproof way to stop prank calls either. The worst of Call Screen service is, it does not work on long distance calls from outside your local service area, it only works within your phone provider.

You can also use Priority Ringing to stop prank phone calls.

This is what you can do with Priority Ringing. You assign a special ring to calls from up to 10 numbers - calls you are most likely to want to answer. The rest can be routed to voice mail. There are ways callers can get around Priority Ringing when it is used as a screening tool.

Again, just like call screen, the prank callers can switch to different phone lines or using calling cards to avoid the distinctive ring.

You can try Call Return (*69): This service allows you to call back the number of last person who called, even if you are unable to answer the phone. Some people suggest that Call Return can be used to stop harassing callers by allowing you to call the harasser back without knowing their phone number.

Here is another trick suggested from others:

This trick to defeat Caller-ID blocking is to forward your phone line to a friend who lives in another LATA. When your friend receives the anonymous phone call, have him use *69 Call Return to dial to offending party back. As he is now placing a long distance phone call, the telephone number of the anonymous caller will show up on your friends phone bill at the end of the month.

A variation of this trick is available in areas where the local phone company offers per-call billing (as opposed to unlimited flat rate local calling) and where the local phone company issues itemized bills on those local phone calls. In those areas, you can switch your phone line to itemized local calling, *69 Call Return the anonymous telephone call, and read the anonymous callers telephone number at the end of the month.

If you are particularly anxious, you can often request your toll records from your local telephone company without waiting for your final bill.

However, you should use caution on this method to discourage harassing callers, as it could actually aggravate the problem. This service is paid on a per-use basis. You can use Caller ID to identify the caller if they are not blocking their number or use a service offered by most phone companies called Privacy Manager.

The Privacy manager works with Caller ID to identify incoming calls that have no telephone numbers displayed on the ID system. When a call is showing as "anonymous," unavailable," out of area" "unlisted", or "private", the caller must identify themselves in order to complete.