Caller id spoofing can have legitimate uses as others have described. Many people automatically assume that the caller using a spoofed number is always a scam artist or harasser but not necessarily. You may wish to contact a business, client, etc. without revealing your real number or relying on blocking. Blocking is simply a request to the phone company that your number not be displayed, but it may not be honored in all cases. Many businesses have phone systems that can still see your number anyway. In any event, the scam artist or harasser would need to know the number of a trusted friend or relative, your bank, etc., to be effective anyway as others have noted. These callers only have as much power as you let them. For example, i removed my answering machine on my landline, and if i don't want to take the call, no message or hangup can occur. By not putting myself in a position to do anything else about an unwanted phone call than not answer it, the caller has no belief that they are even getting through at all.

Here's a new one. I was spoofed and the number on my caller id was from a disconnected number of a person who had passed away several months ago, which was my mother!! I didn't answer it but called the number back and it was still disconnected...how is that for maliciously mean!!!! I'm still in mourning and someone was mean enough to do this which I think was totally heartless and cruel...the worst thing is it was someone who knew me and my mother because it was from her home phone number which I personally disconnect several months before!!!

I was the victim of this kind of spoofing. A indian or arabic man called me from a phone number in MO. I live in IL. He said he was from a law firm and that there is a lawsuit against me. I never received anything in the mail regarding this. Usually a certified document is mailed to u saying your being sued and who the party is that is suing you. I knew something was wrong after there was something freaky going on. Come to find out he was calling family and friends pretending to be me. Eventually I found out who he was and I caused some bodily harm to this person. I really do not take this lightly. If it is done to me again I will find that person

I got a weird text message from my friend saying sorry she lost connection with me, and where did I say i was. I told her i never called her and she said you called me twice. I called her to get details and it turns out someone used spoofing to use my cell number to call her and try to get her to meet up with them. The scary thing is whoever did it knew my name, the nick name i call my friend, and the place we usually go out to have fun at. How can they let people do this, this isn't fun, its giving all the bad people in the world easy access to their victims. Murders can lure victims to places like this person tried to do to my friend. The worst part is these lovely applications and cards even come with voice disguises so men can sound like woman and vice versa. Here is a link to the I PHONES APP that allows this http://calleridfaker.com/ I guess you just have to be careful. Until someone stops this. How many people will get hurt or killed before it is stopped?

It's unfortunate that people use this service for malicious purposes because it has good uses as well, if not essential uses.

Sure, people use it for fun (i.e. pranking friends) but a lot of people use it to conceal their identity or for other privacy concerns. If you have clients, you may not want them to know your home number or cell phone if you have to call from one of those numbers. You can spoof your office number.

Likewise, if you are a victim of domestic abuse, for example, but have custody arrangements with your spouse, you may be able to spoof your phone number during contact so that your true number isn't shown or found out.

Just like many thing out there, people can use different services an what not to commit fraud, harrassment, or other types of crime. I believe the people are to blame for misusing this service, not the service providers themselves.

For your info, as they have not been noted, some spoofing providers include:

www.spooftel.com

www.covertcalling.com

You can find more information on this at these wesbites or by doing a google search for call display spoofing.

Spoofing have been the latest of all the harrasments and ofenses I have been receiving ( anonymous emails and texts and emails to my work place). I get calls in the midle of the night or during the work day and in the caller ID appears the name of friends, family or the apartment lobby, to mention the most used. When I pick up, nobody answers the phone. I've been looking a way to unmask this calls as you can do with the block calls, but so far I've had no luck.

My sister is currently the victim of cell phone spoofing. She went threw college for 4yrs and that all just went down the drain because of these cell phone spoofing. These girls keep spoofing there cell phone and calling police telling them it was my sister calling them. Delaware does not know much about this spoofing, so there is nobody that can actually help her. These girls think its a game and they keep doing it, she's already had 8 warrants on her due to this. And its still going on. I am really starting to worry about her because this is really taking a toll on her. We just don't know where to get help.

I was a recent spoofing victim. Someone was calling my friend in the middle of the night with my number. I filed a complaint with the FCC. I also asked the FCC if an investigation could be launched and if I could prosecute the person who stole my number. I do not take theft of any kind lightly.

My son and his friend were victims of this kind of spoofing in the NYC area - Who should it be reported to? My son (I'll call him Ray) received a 3am phone call on his cellphone from -according to caller-id, his friend "Jay." When he answered half asleep, Jay was saying he needed to know where the apartment key was hidden. My son thought the voice sounded strange and questioned him. Luckily the wanna-be-thief (or worse) used bad language that my son knew his friend would not use and he ended up hanging up. My son thought about it and was worried for his friend so he phoned the police. The police said they drove by and saw nothing strange. A few nights later, the same thing happened again but in reverse. This time Jay got a call that seemed to be from my son who was saying hey it's cold out here unlock the door and let me in. Jay remembered what Ray had told him and he asked the caller something knowing the answer but when the caller didn't give the right response, Jay hung up on him and called my son, who of course swore it wasn't him that just called. The word needs to get out to the public! This could be a PRANK or it could have been a potential murder or robbery! How can we stop this?!?!?!