Do you have caller ID on your phone line? I do. Increasingly, I am getting unsolicited calls from my local area code that are unsolicited and even dangerous (The ones that say your computer has been hacked.). This practice, called "spoofing," is a direct and conscious business decision on the part of the caller to avoid FCC regulations regarding unsolicited phone calls and caller id. For the regulations, in readable form, see https://www.fcc.gov/guides/caller-id-and-spoofing. "Intrastate calls are not subject to the caller id regulations." When I asked the last spoofer, who was marketing technical literature, including literature on internet security, why the company was using local numbers, she quickly and seamlessly replied that it was so I would have a local number to return the call. Ha!
So this is getting ridiculous.
I guess the response from us has to be NEVER answer a local call that doesn't give caller ID information you recognize. Let them leave a message.
And I'm outing eWeek (PCWeek) as the spoofer in this last case. Shame!
By the way, there are many computer and smart phone apps that will provide you with "spoofing" capability. For example, one can be downloaded at (don't bother going there unless you go in sandbox mode and as a incognito browse session) http://www.spoofcard.com/. Unbelievable!
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