[LindseyLouWho]

I have a very strange problem and was wondering if anyone on here had any insight as to what the cause could be. Some female coworkers (and former coworkers from a long time ago) as well as friends of DBF have been getting strange (and some harassing) phone calls in the middle of the night, text messages, and voicemail messages from his phone number. The catch? He's not making them. He has no record of them on his call/message log and some of the voicemails don't even make sense (calling them and then asking them for their number?). The guy at the Sprint store said that it was impossible that his phone was cloned because of the CDMA technology (I personally don't think that tampering with digital devices is "impossible" in any case). Now, he did get this phone off of eBay, which in turn means that the guy who sold it to him also has his phone number, the ESN number, and serial number for the phone. He called customer service next, and the lady said she had heard of that complaint with refurbished phones occasionally, but we couldn't make any definitely diagnosis because his mom wouldn't give up her password to get the calls log pulled up... so now he basically just needs to wait for her to not be busy so she can call them. Ugh. The worst part is his father and mother are accusing me of making these calls, which frankly makes no sense to anyone but them (they hate me for various reasons, including me encouraging DBF to go back to college of all things), considering the voicemail messages clearly were from a man and I have no reason to do anything like this. Has anyone else ever heard of something like this happening or have any insight as to the cause?

Thanks,
Lindsey

[Suzanne 3FC]

How strange! Even if the ebay seller had the info, how would he know who your BF worked with, get their phone numbers, and even locate former coworkers from a long time ago?

Other than that mystery, I think it is possible that someone is doing this, and it's likely that the person knows your BF because of the above.

Google "spoof cell phone number" and you'll find a lot of sites describing text message spoofing, caller ID spoofing, etc.

Can he have his number changed, and not give it out for a while? He could suggest to the victims that they try to call the old number and they'll learn that it's not in service, so it's being spoofed.

[LindseyLouWho]

The most fascinating thing I found when I searched what you recommended was this news story:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7046776/

That basically could potentially explain everything that has happened to his phone. His phone book could have gotten hacked into, and then the caller ID spoofing would make his coworkers think that it was him calling, when it wasn't.

This is all really far fetched, I must admit, but it's the only explanation I can think of. DBF really doesn't have any enemies and doesn't give out his phone number to a whole bunch of people. I can sort of understand that his family would assume it would have to be someone close to him, i.e. myself, that would be doing this... but that still wouldn't explain the manly voice on the voicemail. What I'm wondering is if changing his phone number would be good enough to make everything stop, or if it might be necessary to get a new phone, etc.

[almostheaven]

I wouldn't say its that far fetched since he uses Sprint and that's one of the company's specifically facing this problem. Does he bypass his password for voicemail? The manly voice would be because its a male hacker. Hackers do things to gain profit or for fun. Doesn't mean they have to have something against his co-workers or him. They probably don't even know him. Changing the number should stop it though as the article stated they have to know the number in order to spoof it on Caller I.D.

[freiamaya]

Time to get a new phone...