Can You Trace Harassing Phone Calls If They Use A Caller ID Spoof Card

Copyright (c) 2011 Opperman Investigations Inc

Years ago it was normal childhood behavior to make a few prank calls while growing up. It was mostly good fun for the kids but could be a nuisance if you were on the receiving end of the crank calls. In the mid 80s the phone company introduced a service called Caller ID. This enabled a person to see the name and phone number of the person calling in. This took most of the fun out of the childhood prank call. But even caller ID did not put a stop to more serious harassing phone calls. This could be calls where the caller just lets it ring then hangs up, heavy breathing or even Violent verbal abuse over the phone to their victim. Caller ID did not do much o stop this because people would just dial *67 before making the call, Disabling or blocking the Caller ID feature.

It was around this time that the phone company introduced Call Trace , *57. Many states offer a feature where you can dial *57 shortly after receiving a phone call and then at the end of the month you'll see the callers information on your next months phone bill. his also put serious crimp into the sport of making harassing phone calls. Today call trace is not as widely available as it once was. Many states require a police report before activating it and many states the police will not prosecute a hang up call. They will only investigate a harassing telephone call if here is a specific threat.

Private investigators have taken up the slack by offering a private telephone trap and trace service so that the general public can rent a telephone trap line. This enables the victim of telephone harassment to get an instant email notification of a caller's telephone number even if the caller uses *67 to block the caller ID on the victims phone. A telephone trap line utilizing ANI, automatic Number Identification can unblock blocked calls.

But what if the caller is using a caller ID spoofing web site or spoof card? Can the call still be traced? The answer is yes and no. The telephone trap line can reveler the actual number the person is calling from and disable the Caller ID Spoof card or it may trace the call back to the company that sells the service. In that case you can contact them and try to get their cooperation. If not they can be subpoenaed to get their records for court. Sometimes the trap line will report the same number as the caller ID shows and te caller ID Spoof card will defeat te tap line service but there is no way to until in advance until the system is tested.


------

Ed Opperman is president of Opperman Investigations Inc. He is considered an expert in telephone harassment investigations. If you need a trap line service with (ANI)Automatic Number Identification visit http://www.emailrevealer.com