Who’s on the Line? Increasingly, Caller ID Is Duped

By MATT RICHTEL
NYT

Caller ID has been celebrated as a defense against unwelcome phone pitches. But it is backfiring.

Telemarketers increasingly are disguising their real identities and phone numbers to provoke people to pick up the phone. “Humane Soc.” may not be the Humane Society. And think the I.R.S. is on the line? Think again.

Caller ID, in other words, is becoming fake ID.

“You don’t know who is on the other end of the line, no matter what your caller ID might say,” said Sandy Chalmers, a division manager at the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection in Wisconsin.

(More here.)