"Neighbor spoofing" question

December 22, 2022 12:23 PM

Over a two-hour period today, I got 12 “neighbor spoofing” calls on my cell phone - calls where the spoofed number has the same area code and three-digit prefix as mine, but four different digits at the end. In no two cases were the last four digits the same, and no voicemail was ever left. I get that neighbor spoofing is intended to fool you into thinking you’re getting a call from someone who lives near you, but why would the scammers try this 12 times in a two-hour span? I’m prepared to write it off to sloppy execution in their automated calling system (plus not all crooks being masterminds), but is there some reason they might have wanted to do it this way?
posted by Epixonti to Technology (7 answers total)

You're assuming that all the calls are coming from one spoofer.

But even if they are, there are other reasons. My brother and sister have the same area code and exchange, but my brother's number ends in 0581 and my sister's ends in 0932. So they could be betting that you have a similar dynamic where you know multiple people in the same exchange who also know each other, and the notion that all of them are calling you at once might indicate an emergency, which would make you more likely to answer.

Corporate numbers also tend to share an exchange. For example, my company has both (XXX) XXX-3096 and (XXX) XXX-4368. They could be trying to make you think that the same person is calling you, but from different numbers from a corporate switchboard.

But I get so many spoofed calls that I assume there's more than one person at work.
posted by kevinbelt at 12:33 PM on December 22, 2022

Heck, I get calls on my cell phone with the phone number and name of the company I work for (remotely) since I forward my official work number to my cell. So of course I answer them but when there's silence on the line, or someone does NOT say "Hi, xxxx, sorry to bother you on your day off..." then I just hang up. To be clear, the original junk call randomly hit my official work number and then I got bothered at home. Telephone calls are soooooo 20th Century.
posted by forthright at 12:42 PM on December 22, 2022

Maybe your own number was spoofed and some of those calls were simply your fellow spoof victims calling you back?

I used to get all sorts of random people with my same area code + first three calling me. I'd pick up and they'd say, hi you called me? And I'd flabbergastedly tell them that I hadn't. But it had been my number, and it had been spoofed, and those scammers used my number for months before moving on to another number with my same area code + first three.

I once got a call from my own number, and I nearly jumped out of my skin.
posted by mochapickle at 2:27 PM on December 22, 2022 [4 favorites]

Another possibility is that anti-spam measures are working - my call volume seems to be down lately. As more options are being closed off, they need to make the most of what they have left. So when they get their hands on a new access into the phone network that lets them make their calls, they blast more calls out, faster, to get as much value out of that access as they can before they get shut down.
posted by Hatashran at 2:42 PM on December 22, 2022

Response by poster: Hi, Molly, my carrier is Fido (in Canada) and I'm on iOS. Thanks!
posted by Epixonti at 3:38 PM on December 22, 2022

Response by poster: Thanks!
posted by Epixonti at 5:25 PM on December 22, 2022

These calls are automated and only connect to a human scammer if you actually pick up. so as long as they're getting enough victims, they may not care if the occasional person gets seventy-five calls in a row.
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 11:33 PM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]