Are You Being Spoofed? Spoofcards Make It EASY!

Last I heard it was almost Halloween, so maybe the spoofing craze is getting revved up again to support all the spooks!  But is seems like spoofcards are making a return to the scene more than ever right now!

For those who may not know, spoofcards allow a caller to place a call to you using a fake caller ID. The technology has been around for quite awhile, but it is now super easy to trick people into thinking they are getting a call from someone else! Enter Spoofcards.

Spoofcards are a virtual calling card, that can be purchased for as low as ten bucks for 60 minutes of talk time. The user dials a toll-free number, then keys in the actual number to be called and the caller ID they want the called party to see. There are some services that also provide a voice scrambler to make the caller sound like someone from the opposite sex!

Right now, "spoofing" appears to be legal -- although certainly some of the applications that people have come up with are definitely NOT!

Spoofers have been caught using stolen credit cards to dial up companies like Western Union, using the caller ID of the person whose credit card was stolen and the voice -- either male or female of the victim. They'll use the credit card to order a cash transfer then pick up the dough!

Ever activate a new credit card?  You activation must take place from your home number so the credit card company can verify it is really you calling to activate the card.  How easy would it be to fake the credit card company, when a "spoofer" can put your home number into the caller ID display. Viola, "you" have just activated your credit card!

There are currently two companies who offer the service - Spoofcard and Telespoof. Of course, these companies can track where the actual calls are coming from and will relinquish the information to the authorities, but they can still wreck much havoc for frivolous endeavors too.

Telemarketers have been known to use spoofing to get unsuspecting subjects to answer calls they would ordinarily let go to voice mail.

Kids pull pranks on each other to pretend an ex-boyfriend or girl friend is calling an old flame. Or sometimes to fool their parents into thinking they are calling from a friends home land line.

All in all, it seems, "spoofing" is more like "lying" or "mis-representing" and the chances of it being for fun or entertainment is less likely than it being for misdeeds.

Alaska State Representative Bob Lynn is mad as heck!  He says, "False caller id is more than serious than pranks, or the annoyance of intrusive telemarketing -- it facilitates fraud and can be potentially deadly."

He has introduced a bill in Congress that would make spoofing illegal, but with all the other more important stuff on their plate at the moment, this is likely to slip to the bottom of the stack.