Marcus Vell

[ Marcus Vell ]

Editor, Spoofwatch

Marcus writes, edits and re-checks everything on Spoofwatch. His job on the site is boring on purpose: he reads the primary sources (the FTC, the FCC, carrier help pages), tests each phone setting on a real handset before describing it, and changes the date at the top of a page only when the text actually changed. He keeps a plain text file of spoofed-call screenshots that readers send in, and he has stopped answering unknown numbers at dinner. He does not do investigations of individual numbers and he cannot tell you who called you. If a page here is wrong, he would like to hear about it.

What I cover

I write about caller ID spoofing from the side of the person who got the call. That means plain explanations of why a screen shows something false, what the phone menus really say, and which reports go where. I do not trace calls for readers, and I will not write instructions for spoofing.

How I work

Before I describe a setting, I open it on a phone. Before I cite a rule, I read the agency page it comes from. I would rather publish a sentence that says "this varies by carrier" than a confident one I cannot back up. When I change something material, the date on the page changes. When I only fix typos, it does not.

If you have a spoofed-call screenshot, you can send it through the contact form. I will read it, but I cannot promise a reply on every one, and I will never publish your number or name.

What I have been working on

The most recent additions are the practical ones: how to read your call log, what silent calls usually are, and the point that blocking numbers one by one is a poor trade of your time. I wrote the greeting page because several readers asked what to say to strangers who keep calling them back.

My own phone has Silence Unknown Callers on, and I look at voicemail at lunch. That is the whole of my security setup, apart from hanging up on anyone who tells me not to.

Where to start

If your own number called you, begin with the first article in the list below. If you are being blamed for calls you never made, go to the number misuse guide. For everything else, the list is sorted with the newest piece on top, and each page grew out of a situation someone actually described to me.