Have you ever received a call from an unknown number? It's a situation that we've all faced at one time or another. The phone rings and the display shows No Caller ID.
It can be a frustrating experience, so much so that many people that I know simply refuse to answer calls unless they can clearly see who's on the other end.
The logic is that any person with a legitimate reason for calling would reveal their identity - and it's a perfectly reasonable assertion. As human beings we're inherently wary of the unknown, and phone calls are certainly no exception.
The reality is that many of these contacts are merely sales calls, and while incredibly annoying, in the grand scheme of things they're relatively benign. But what about those cases where there's something more serious going on?
While isolated nuisance calls can be irritating, repeated calls over a sustained period can amount to harassment, stalking and even bullying. Nuisance calls are capable of causing fear and distress to others, and may even be a criminal offence.
I was prompted to write this blog post when a friend contacted me recently to share their experiences - they had been receiving nuisance calls from an unknown caller for some time and wanted some advice on what to do.
They suspected that they knew the person responsible, and so didn't want to involve the police or telephone company in tracing the calls (which itself would be a long drawn out process involving the courts).
The situation reminded me of one that I'd experienced before, where I was lead to believe there was no possible way to trace an anonymous caller. Through my own research I found this to be untrue, and I want to share what I learned with you.
BUSTED: "There is no way to trace an anonymous caller without involving both the police and telecoms provider"
I discovered that there's actually a way to reveal blocked or unknown numbers - and it's due to the way that toll-free and emergency telephone numbers operate. For obvious reasons, it's not possible to withhold your telephone number when dialing the emergency services, but the same is also true for toll-free (1-800 / 0800) numbers.
This is because toll-free numbers are billed to the individual or organisation that owns that telephone number. In order to correctly attribute the source of those charges during billing - all carriers will prevent you from hiding your caller ID when ringing toll-free numbers (if you'd like to learn more about how this works please click here).
So how can we use this information to our advantage? It's really quite simple. All we need to do is take an inbound call with a hidden caller ID, and then re-direct that call to a toll-free telephone number.
In doing so we're able to capture the callers ID, and then re-direct the call back to us again with the source set to the new unmasked number (using some cool behind-the-scenes wizardry).
And does it work? Absolutely! While it all seems incredibly technical to set up - fortunately for us there's a services that exist to automate the entire process for us.
Introducing: TrapCall
TrapCall is an online service that gives us the ability to unblock hidden / unknown callers. All you have to do it decline the initial call and wait for a call back with the original caller ID totally unmasked. It's really that simple.
The service works by re-directing your original call through to one of their toll-free numbers. Once they have the unmasked telephone number, they re-direct the call back to you once again, however this time, the original telephone number is visible.
Several years ago I had a problem with nuisance callers plaguing my mobile phone. I was receiving up to 15 calls per day, and it almost resulted in me having to change my mobile number. I decided to give TrapCall a go and was incredibly surprised to find that it worked.
Better still, newer features have been introduced which include automatic call recording, and even the ability to blacklist callers. In fact, it worked so well that I'd have no hesitation in recommending it to anybody that's having a problem with nuisance callers (and for the record, I have no personal affiliation with TrapCall).
I believes it's a mere $3.95/month for the basic package - which includes full call unblocking and blacklisting features. It represents such great value and with close to 1 million users, it seems I'm not the only one to think so.
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About The Author
Mike Carthy is an entrepreneur and cyber security specialist. He runs a successful business providing cyber security training to some of the world's largest companies, and dedicates his time to helping businesses to understand and tackle cyber threats. He's been featured in publications such as Laptop Magazine, The International Business Times and Computer Weekly.
Follow me on Twitter: @MichaelCarthy
Check out my blog: www.mikecarthy.com