How To Stop Prank Callers
Stopping Prank Calls
Receiving a prank call is not only an annoying experience but it can also be quite scary. Often, the prank call is meaningless and no harm is intended, but every once in awhile a prankster can cross the line and turn into a stalker.
Putting an end to harassing or prank phone calls my prove to be more of a challenge than most people think. Those who participate in scams, phishing, pretexting or just plain old harassment will try and hide behind a wall of anonymity and a simple *69 will not actually identify the caller but might not even lead you directly back to their phone.
If you are truly afraid of someone who is harassing or stalking you by phone, you should first report the incidents to the police so they will have some type of record of your complaint. Just in case things escalate and you find yourself face to face with this person, police reports can help the police do their jobs and better protect you.
Tracing the call is the most aggressive approach to take without involving the police. In most cases, the source of the phone calls is not there to hurt you and many of us might feel a bit silly for involving the police without at least attempting to identify the source of the phone calls.
So the first step to any obvious phone call trace is checking the Caller ID and/or *69. Again, most telemarketers, prankster, and criminals are not going to make it easy for you to find them so a reverse look up will probably be needed. A reverse lookup is a search by phone number service. By entering the telephone number in your call log, you will be given information pertaining to that number.
When using a free reverse look up, you will be given common public information and not much else. A paid reverse telephone look up will yield a lot more data and probably allow you to identify the the incoming phone caller. You see, quality reverse look up services have access to millions of records gained from several legal sources. Most notably, cell phone number listings which are not published in the white page. A quality reverse number look up is a massive conglomeration of every type of public record available and these types of records are rarely compiled in one place. Access to databases in general can be very expensive but not when tracing phone numbers by paying a small fee to access a reverse lookup service.
Once the information about your caller shows up on your computer screen, you can usually get them to leave you alone by calling them and telling them you know who they are. If they are sales people, they will move on to the next target. If they are bill collectors, they will immediately begin to follow the proper procedures when attempting to collect a debt, and finally if the caller is someone who wishes to do you harm, you should immediately report their identity to the police department.
