Over the weekend and thru today I have been getting calls from folks saying they were returning a missed call from me. I do not know these folks and they do not know me. The first few times it happened over the weekend I blamed it on AT&T technical issues. When I got several 'return calls' before lunch today, I went to the AT&T website and started a chat session. It is there that I was told I was likely the victim of spoofing. Not knowing what spoofing (as opposed to spamming) ,meant I did a quickie google search and learned that it is when a person hijacks your phone number so that when they make a call to a person, that person's caller ID shows MY phone number. A couple of folks who called me proceeded to tell me the story of how the person on the other end of the line, with a 'foreign accent', was calling to inform that the person's PC was not working correctly and was offering to fix it over the internet lines. Fortunately, both folks caught that it was a spam and stopped the conversation immediately. So the spoof leads to a spam.
AT&T informed me there was almost nothing that could be done. (Is that true or was the AT&T chat representative just trying to get rid of me?). The Chat person advised that I would likely need to have my cell number changed. Geeeeeshhh....I have had this number for years. It will be a SERIOUS pain to get it changed.
I also reported the issue to the FCC on their website. Got a nice auto reply email for my efforts saying essentially they do not look into individual cases, but use the data to spot trends and such. But, thanks for participating! We are from the gub'ment and we are here to help you!
Anyway, have any of you been 'spoofed'? Were you able to get it resolved without resorting to a ph number change? Any advice?
FYI....seems most of the return calls I was getting over the past few days have sounded like older folks. Spammer may be targeting the elderly? Also, ALL of the folks who called were extremely nice once I explained my predicament. The last caller engaged in conversation for 15 minutes....explaining to me this kind of stuff is about to drive her to open the 3 bottles of wine she has even though she doesn't drink and explaining that this spoofing is another reason she is voting for Trump. (was not about to ask how the two are connected!)
AT&T informed me there was almost nothing that could be done. (Is that true or was the AT&T chat representative just trying to get rid of me?). The Chat person advised that I would likely need to have my cell number changed. Geeeeeshhh....I have had this number for years. It will be a SERIOUS pain to get it changed.
I also reported the issue to the FCC on their website. Got a nice auto reply email for my efforts saying essentially they do not look into individual cases, but use the data to spot trends and such. But, thanks for participating! We are from the gub'ment and we are here to help you!
Anyway, have any of you been 'spoofed'? Were you able to get it resolved without resorting to a ph number change? Any advice?
FYI....seems most of the return calls I was getting over the past few days have sounded like older folks. Spammer may be targeting the elderly? Also, ALL of the folks who called were extremely nice once I explained my predicament. The last caller engaged in conversation for 15 minutes....explaining to me this kind of stuff is about to drive her to open the 3 bottles of wine she has even though she doesn't drink and explaining that this spoofing is another reason she is voting for Trump. (was not about to ask how the two are connected!)