Robocall and Spoofing Definitions
Robocalls are automated phone calls with prerecorded or artificial voice messages. Many are legal and just simply unwanted calls while others can be illegal as the sole intent is to defraud a party of money.
Spoofing is when a caller deliberately falsifies the information transmitted to your caller ID display to disguise their identity.
- Spoofing is not always illegal. There are legitimate, legal uses for spoofing. For example, a doctor calls a patient from her personal mobile phone and displays the office number rather than the personal phone number, or a business displays its toll-free call-back number.
- Spoofing is illegal when the caller falsifies the caller ID display information to disguise their identity with the intent to defraud, cause harm or wrongly obtain anything of value.
Fraudulent Calls: Calls originating from invalid, unallocated and unassigned telephone numbers, as well as calls originating from inbound-only numbers that should never make outbound calls.
LEGAL ROBOCALLS
Political calls about candidates running for office - allowed without permission
- Surveys
- Robocalls that are purely informational
- Flight cancellations
- Appointment reminders
- Delayed school openings
Calls from some health care providers. This includes a robocall from a pharmacy reminding you to refill /pick up a prescription. Consumers consent to receive these calls.
Debt collection calls. A business contacting you to collect a debt can use robocalls to reach you. Robocalls that try to sell you services to reduce your debt are illegal and are almost certainly scams.
Charities asking for donations. Charities can make these calls themselves. But if a charity hires someone to make robocalls on its behalf, the robocalls can only go to members of the charity or prior donors. They also must include an automated option to let you stop future calls.
Learn more about robocalls and the mitigation services we offer here.