Jump to content

Menu

Can someone hijack your cell phone number?


Recommended Posts

My dd has received a bunch of threatening texts over the last 2 days. Dh called the number tonight, and the girl who answered started yelling at him that she was receiving nasty messages from dd's number. The girl told him her name, and my dd doesn't know anyone by that name. I looked at our online record, and this girl clearly texted my dd first. The first text said something like "stop messing with me" (but using very foul language), so it does seem like she was responding, not starting something. It's not a local number. I called the police, who called the number and spoke with her. She claims someone from dd's phone texted her first, and she read the text to the policewoman.

 

Policewoman says she believes both of us. She thinks someone else might have dd's phone number. Is that possible? I'm going to talk to Verizon tomorrow, and I blocked the number from dd's phone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My brother- who is a techie god- was just saying something about this. He said you can set up, using your computer, a way to send (and receive, I think) texts from pretty much any phone number. He was planning on doing that after he broke his phone. So yes, they can, to a point.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Could someone have 'borrowed' your dd's phone?

No, but even if they had, it would have shown up as coming from dd's phone first, right? According to the verizon online "usage details", the first contact was a text from the other number to my dd at 1:09 yesterday, then dd texted her back at 1:10 saying she didn't know what she was talking about. Then there were a bunch more texts from the other number, and dd stopped responding. Which is exactly what I see when I look at dd's phone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My brother- who is a techie god- was just saying something about this. He said you can set up, using your computer, a way to send (and receive, I think) texts from pretty much any phone number. He was planning on doing that after he broke his phone. So yes, they can, to a point.

 

 

Thank you. This would explain it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wiki says this:

To use a typical spoofing service, customers pay in advance for a personal identification number (PIN), allowing them to make a call for a certain amount of time.

 

 

 

Would that mean someone is targeting your child? That is scary. It seems like a lot of trouble, and I would be filing police reposrts.

 

You have grounds for a lawsuit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wiki says this:

To use a typical spoofing service, customers pay in advance for a personal identification number (PIN), allowing them to make a call for a certain amount of time.

 

 

 

Would that mean someone is targeting your child? That is scary. It seems like a lot of trouble, and I would be filing police reposrts.

 

You have grounds for a lawsuit.

 

 

 

Or they could have just picked a number at random....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is that considered very likely?

 

Sure. The perp wanted to mess with the victim (the receiver of the calls). They sent a harassing message, and didn't want it to look like it came from them. They can just pick a number at random and put it in the database.

 

I know there are Spoofing websites, that require a pin, but I believe there are other ways to do it, if someone is tech savvy enough.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

:grouphug:

Seems like if they looked at the usage details online they would see the actual number that sent the messages, instead of the fake one. Should I call the girl back tomorrow and see if she would check it?

 

I dont think so. It will show the fake number as far as I know.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Someone did something similar with my number once. I started getting a bunch of random text message from people I did not know. "Who is this?" "That's hilarious". Thankfully whatever it was did not appear to have been nasty in any way. One of the texters told me it was cute and funny and made her day, LOL. Too bad I couldn't take credit for it. :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...