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Strange Numbers on Caller ID?

Posted by Cliff on from the forewarned-is-forearmed dept.

boohiss asks: "I've been getting a lot of calls on my cell phone from '+001819'. I haven't answered them, of course. But what is this number? I've found some various explanations here and there, but nothing conclusive. There's also the story on Snopes about the famed 809 long distance scam, which may or may not be what this is. Could it be some form of cell phone spam that isn't compatible with my phone? Does anyone else get these calls, and has anyone figured out what they are?" If anyone is unfortunate enough to fall for one of these, what options do they have in terms of damage control?

4 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. It might be... by skermit · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Office pboxes. I just got a call from my aunt who called form 973-000-0001 (973 is a New Jersey area code). If they have their caller ID tags screwed up, or even spoofed, it'll show up that way. Here's a service which does it for a fee... http://www.covertcall.com/

    --
    -Christopher Wu
    http://www.christopherwu.net/
  2. It is the international prefix by ZenJabba1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Basically your cell phone provider isn't stripping the right digits from the number being presented to it, and as such the number being presented to your phone is strange...

    All that number means is

    + (international dial)
    00 (in some countries this is also international)
    819 (area code) ...

    I saw this same problem when traveling through the midwest a few months ago.

    --
    `find / -name "*your_base*" -exec chown us:us {} \;`
  3. Re:Similar thing... by Trepalium · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Telemarketers? They seem to be allowed to use predictive dialers so long as they answer within a few seconds, otherwise they must terminate the call.

    --
    I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
  4. same wierd thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I've been getting calls that traceback to 825 area code .... too bad there isn't one.