What is caller ID spoofing?

Caller ID spoofing is when a caller purposefully hides the number they are calling from and causes a different number to appear on your caller ID. Scammers will often do something called "neighbor spoofing," which makes it appear as if you are receiving a call from your area code in an effort to get you to answer the phone. If you do answer, the scammer will typically try to get you to divulge sensitive information, such as a credit card or social security number, in order to steal from you.

If you receive a call from a number you don't know, we recommend letting the call go to voicemail without answering. If the call is legitimate, they will likely leave you a voicemail and let you know how to contact them if necessary. You can also look the number up using Whitepages reverse phone lookup to see if it's a person or business that you know.

Please keep in mind that if you look up a spoofed phone number on Whitepages, it may belong to a real person and likely won't be labeled as spam on our site. Scammers who employ number spoofing usually switch numbers pretty quickly, which means it won't receive enough spam reports for us to flag it.

For more information on spam reporting on Whitepages, please take a look at this article: How do I view or report a phone number as spam?