I don't understand how that works. Where did they get the phone numbers from? Your phone bill or your phone?

For the short term, why not ask everyone involved to start a short text before they called?
Go to text, send a (.), then call. If you don't get a text just before the call you didn't answer the phone.

Or if the illegitimate caller does is not able to get current designations, have all the affected add a single letter or designator to their own phone so when you see MOM1, Sister1, Bob1 or something similar you know not to answer.



or, have you read this?
https://www.mcafee.com/blogs/consumer/how-to-stop-phone-spoofing/

This is for a domestic abuse/stalking type matter. Perpetrator was dating victim briefly, and took her phone at some point to take down phone numbers of friends & family. I have a sweet old battleax attorney who is preparing a protective order and mentoring me on this type of case, but such an order doesn't actually stop a person from doing anything. It's just a tool to prosecute after the fact.

Elder attorney is not very tech savvy, so she assigned me the task of trying to figure out some way to help the family filter his spoofed calls. I recall reading something about an app that makes a VOIP caller identify themself ("please state your name") before putting the call through, but can't find such a thing now.

Can you send someone to break his kneecaps and maybe his thumbs and fingers to keep from using the phone?

I get spoofed phone number calls all the time both on my cell work phone and at home. Latest one had Devon Energy as the caller.....:) At present I don't know of any piece of software that can actually identify the "real" phone being used. Maybe dfanman has a clue as my IT skills are getting rusty...:) It is frustrating as he** dealing with these tech issues. You can block the numbers all you want but the caller will just roll over to another spoofed number and continue the calls. Changing numbers is one way to deal with it but make sure that whatever service you go with doesn't forward calls coming into the old number to the new number. You can block all you want, get on the useless don't call list, but the spammers and others can always come up with a way to get around it unfortunately.

Well, spammers are not the problem here. I'm trying to figure out if there's a way to filter out incoming VOIP calls.

Text that you are about to call including password; then call.

Thanks for being a hero and helping her out. Hopefully you all can stop him before he escalates his bad behavior.

For the tech challenge, I wish I could say there is an app for that... From a practical standpoint, consider starting here: Evidence Collection Series: Spoofing Calls and Messages

The article contains some good information to help deal with this issue, including evidence collection and a sample protective order with specific spoofing language you may want to review.

On a personal note, I’ve had to deal with a similar abusive scenario that ended up with a tech executive spending nearly a year in jail for abusing family members and friends during a train wreck divorce. From a legal standpoint, this is fairly straightforward to prove when the person is using his or her own phone as the source of the abuse, such as abusive or terroristic, out of their mind text storms.

In that case, the prosecutor can work with the service providers on each end to show text and server logs of the events. If you also file the mentioned protective order and document any continued abuse, harassment, stalking, and or threats, the potential fine and jail time at least doubles for this type of abuse. Throw in the spoofing and prove it caused harm and the fine can more than double again.

In your specific case, the fact he is using VoIP spoofing instead of text messaging may complicate the investigation depending on how tech savvy he is. If the perpetrator paid for the VoIP service with a credit card in his name or business, or downloaded the VoIP app to his own phone or PC, then it might be fairly easy to prove he is the person making the spoofed calls.

Here is where it might get more complicated and part of the reason why the FCC is having trouble collecting the huge fines for the mind numbing robocall abuse we all hate. In 2019, the WSJ reported the FCC had ordered robocall violators to pay over $208 million in fines between 2015-2019 but at the time the report was published they had only managed to collect less than $7K in fines.

If the person used an anonymous crypto wallet to pay for an offshore hosted VoIP service and connects to the service truly anonymously, it will be more challenging to prove. Not impossible, just more challenging. Even if he turns out to be an above average tech villain and connected anonymously to the VoIP server, the above article speaks to other ways to help tie the person to the crime.

On the other hand, and truly playing the devil’s advocate, with the deep fake technology that currently exists, when combined with VoIP spoofing, someone could in theory easily set someone else up in this scenario, including sounding just like him. If along the journey you discover he actually has an alibi for all the times the calls happen, it's something that would have to be taken into consideration. It might sound like a legal thriller, and while unlikely, it really could happen.


Again, thanks for being a hero. Best wishes.

record the calls, let him talk for a few mins. and even have her ask him specific questions that only the troublemaker would know the answer to.

if they dated she can ask if he remembers some facts about 2-3 dates.

take to leo and file charges for stalking/harassment.

leo goes to visit him and may even take a search warrant for the phone, computer etc.


I am in for a gtg as well.