I got a call on my cell from 555-555-0123. It was a computerized male voice who asked if I was Jamie (my nickname only friends call me) and started talking about ransom and hostages or something. I hung up, but I can't find anything online about how somebody can call you from 555-555-0123! Does anybody know anything about this?
(It's probably one of my idiot friends, but it's just so weird...)
There are some cell phones that will let you change how your number appears when calling someone. Of course, that only works if they are not programmed into your phone already in the contact lists. Can you check your usage online and see if that call actually appears as that phone number?
I think, and I don't know this for sure, its possible to alter the caller ID display of a phone by hacking the sim card. So if your phone number is 555-555-5555, but for some reason you want it to show up on other phones caller ID as 777-777-7777 it is possible.
we got a ransom call
saying that one of our uncles had been kidnapped and they were demanding money my mom freaked out (it was her brother) went around, crying, flustered you know? and she called my uncles house and he answered and he was like "yea i got the same call, apparently im being held for ransom or something"
anyways it was a hoax and the call was from somewhere in mexico
we got a ransom call
saying that one of our uncles had been kidnapped and they were demanding money my mom freaked out (it was her brother) went around, crying, flustered you know? and she called my uncles house and he answered and he was like "yea i got the same call, apparently im being held for ransom or something"
anyways it was a hoax and the call was from somewhere in mexico
That's like a common ruse in Japan, known as "It's me! It's me!" calls. The person rings up, claiming the husband/son has racked up a whole lot of gambling debts, so transfer money to this bank account or he'll be exposed. There are various routines -usually targeting elderly, easily-confused grannies.
The masking the phone number thing makes sense because I only have like 1/10th of my friends in my contacts (new phone). The thing that leads me away from the hoax idea is they had my nickname associated with my cell phone number, something that is only given out to like Pep Boys when I need my car fixed.
I figure it's either a friend or a REALLY good hacker. If the latter, I can't do anything about it anyway.
The masking the phone number thing makes sense because I only have like 1/10th of my friends in my contacts (new phone). The thing that leads me away from the hoax idea is they had my nickname associated with my cell phone number, something that is only given out to like Pep Boys when I need my car fixed.
I figure it's either a friend or a REALLY good hacker. If the latter, I can't do anything about it anyway.
thats just kinda scary, i would have completely freaked out and called the cops:(
i've seen this done before. my friend actually made a call from some random number 1-800-222-2222 and with a girl voice told her she won a cruise. there is actually a website where you can do this from for a fee. my money is on one of your friends.
You might want to check that our before sending out a bunch.
In small print it reads "standard charges may apply"
like, calling rates
Well, only for the person receiving the call. You have this weird system in the US that people even need to pay when somebody else calls them. ;-) In most other countries receiving calls is free.
(There's actually an interesting story why the system is different in the US. In most other countries cell phones have different area codes, so you can tell from the number whether you are calling a land line or a cell phone (and consequently whether the call will be cheap or expensive). This is not possible in the US. The phone companies were afraid that people would stop calling others altogether out of fear to reach an expensive cell phone. The problem was solved by having cell phone owners pay the difference for incoming calls, so that costs for the caller would always be the same, independent of the type of phone they call. - Just thought I'd share. ;-) )
(There's actually an interesting story why the system is different in the US. In most other countries cell phones have different area codes, so you can tell from the number whether you are calling a land line or a cell phone (and consequently whether the call will be cheap or expensive). This is not possible in the US. The phone companies were afraid that people would stop calling others altogether out of fear to reach an expensive cell phone. The problem was solved by having cell phone owners pay the difference for incoming calls, so that costs for the caller would always be the same, independent of the type of phone they call. - Just thought I'd share. ;-) )
(There's actually an interesting story why the system is different in the US. In most other countries cell phones have different area codes, so you can tell from the number whether you are calling a land line or a cell phone (and consequently whether the call will be cheap or expensive). This is not possible in the US. The phone companies were afraid that people would stop calling others altogether out of fear to reach an expensive cell phone. The problem was solved by having cell phone owners pay the difference for incoming calls, so that costs for the caller would always be the same, independent of the type of phone they call. - Just thought I'd share. ;-) )
