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Phone spam: 323-927-1550

apfhex

apfhex

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Aug 8, 2006
2,670
5
Northern California
I've gotten quite a few calls on my private cell phone number from this number the past few months. Has anyone else?

Strangely enough, I Googled it and came across several sites with quite a bit of discussion about it.
http://whocalled.us/lookup/3239271550

- The phone number, 323-927-1550, is faked
- The message, always in Spanish for me, apparently says "You have won a free camera, press 1 to talk with an operator."
- It's a scam (duh)

I'm not on the Do Not Call Registry, but since this isn't legit anyway, I don't think it would help.
 
That area code is in Southern California:
"The 323 area code include parts of Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Culver City, Hawthorne, Inglewood, Lynwood, Gardena, Montebello, Commerce, Monterey Park, Alhambra, Pasadena, South Pasadena and Burbank."​
Isn't caller ID a feature of the phone company? Wouldn't the scammers have to be running a phone company in order to fake that?
 
Doctor Q said:
That area code is in Southern California:
"The 323 area code include parts of Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Culver City, Hawthorne, Inglewood, Lynwood, Gardena, Montebello, Commerce, Monterey Park, Alhambra, Pasadena, South Pasadena and Burbank."​
Isn't caller ID a feature of the phone company? Wouldn't the scammers have to be running a phone company in order to fake that?
Click to expand...
Spoofing caller ID information, quite illegal ... for those engaged in fraud, telemarketing, and collections. Not really illegal otherwise.
 
Doctor Q said:
Isn't caller ID a feature of the phone company? Wouldn't the scammers have to be running a phone company in order to fake that?
Click to expand...
According to a post from the page I linked:
"A note to everyone: This number, 323-927-1550, is FRAUDULENT and IS NOT the true originating number. The DNC will not help you as the caller is deliberately breaking the law to begin with. These same calls having been coming for the last couple months from someone with a T1/PBX that is inserting fraudulent CID numbers. This time the CO exchange was actually valid... though that was probably a mistake by the spammer. All examples in the past (that I know of) have been NPA-NXX exchanges that are/have never been assigned to any phone company (ie. 123-456-xxxx has never been assigned by NANPA)."​

At least the number shows up on my caller ID so I can not answer it it when I see it.
 
apfhex said:
I've gotten quite a few calls on my private cell phone number from this number the past few months. Has anyone else?
Click to expand...

I have, from the same number 323-927-1550. Only in the past week.

So, I take it, there is nothing we can do about it.
 
Doctor Q said:
That area code is in Southern California:
"The 323 area code include parts of Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Culver City, Hawthorne, Inglewood, Lynwood, Gardena, Montebello, Commerce, Monterey Park, Alhambra, Pasadena, South Pasadena and Burbank."​
Isn't caller ID a feature of the phone company? Wouldn't the scammers have to be running a phone company in order to fake that?
Click to expand...


Alhambra has 323 numbers? :eek:
I thought everyone was 626.
 
Doctor Q said:
Wouldn't the scammers have to be running a phone company in order to fake that?
Click to expand...
There are many ways to fake Caller ID these days.

1) run your own PBX
2) VOIP

VOIP is the most insidious since I have recently been receiving international calls I do want to get whose local caller ID has also shown up from spammers. I presume it's because the call is routed over the internet to a local phone #. :(

B
 
I'm getting a lot of 000-000-0000 calls on my cell phone lately. Most annoying...
 
If you call your cell phone provider, can't the block certain numbers from calling your phone? Maybe it's worth a try.
 
Benjamindaines said:
Doesn't that cost like 10 bucks extra a month? At least it does on a land line... which is a total rip off for privacy someone should sue
Click to expand...
Workaround: Put the number in your phone list and set the custom ring to silent/no ring for that number.

B
 
I wish cell phones could outright block certain numbers, like adding them to a "Blocked" list similar to the regular Contact list, and then numbers on that list would always be rejected.
 
I wish they'd call me... I want to win a free camera.

On a related note, my home phone gets about a dozen calls per day from various numbers (mostly caller-id blocked). There's never a message left on my answering machine, and on the very rare occasion I actually pick it up, there's no recording or operator... nothing. Seems like there's been an explosion of these types of calls over the last few months. I can't for the life of me figure out what the purpose is. Are they just phishing for active numbers? If so, why? I've been on the do not call list since day one, so whatever's going on is scam-related somehow... I just can't figure out the scam.
 
Flowbee said:
I wish they'd call me... I want to win a free camera.

On a related note, my home phone gets about a dozen calls per day from various numbers (mostly caller-id blocked). There's never a message left on my answering machine, and on the very rare occasion I actually pick it up, there's no recording or operator... nothing. Seems like there's been an explosion of these types of calls over the last few months. I can't for the life of me figure out what the purpose is. Are they just phishing for active numbers? If so, why? I've been on the do not call list since day one, so whatever's going on is scam-related somehow... I just can't figure out the scam.
Click to expand...
Most of the ones we get are from telemarketers representing charities we donate to or surveys who are exempt from the do not call list. When we do pick up we tell them this diminishes our chances of donating or participating in the survey...

B
 
Black&Tan said:
I'm getting a lot of 000-000-0000 calls on my cell phone lately. Most annoying...
Click to expand...

Yeah - I have as well. What's up with that? Call's like that on both my cell and home (cable modem) phone service.
 
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