Sadly, we live in day and age when it has become scary to answer a phone number. That is the truth of the matter. You don’t know if it is a robocall, someone scamming you or an abusive caller. On the other hand, completely ignoring an unknown number means that you might miss your doctor’s appointment, job opportunity, or an event at your kid’s school. So, having a way to distinguish these calls seems to be imperative and pages like reverse phone lookup are there to help.
Doing a reverse phone lookup is just one of the steps you can take. Featured in this article are several others that you might find useful when it comes to protecting yourself from continual phone harassment.
Once you know who is hiding behind the unfamiliar phone number on your phone it will be a lot easier to decide whether or not you want to answer it, report it, or block it. And the fact of the matter is you need to decide quickly. This is one of the main reasons why having a reverse phone lookup is essential. You can bookmark it and have it at a ready to check any number that is calling you. It usually takes just a couple of clicks to get all the information you need. Simply type in the number in the designated field and you can get all the information you need about the caller, even a note on whether or not it is a spam call. That way you can decide on what your next step should be while having all the necessary information.
Feeling safe is very important and that is what the knowledge of who is on the other side of an unknown phone call can provide us. Of course, there is always the long ay round and that is to hang up and call your operator to check the identity of the caller. The first option is definitely the fastest as all it takes is a couple of clicks.
Now, we have covered the main way of dealing with an unknown number calling you constantly and how you can get the information you need to decide what to do with it. But what do you do when there is no number on the screen when it is someone who does not want you to know they are calling you? Well, fret not there is an option for that too.
The first thing you should understand is that by law, in some countries, providers are required to provide calling line identification restriction (CLIR) to all their subscribers. In layman terms, this means that caller ID hiding/withholding is allowed to anyone who activates such an option in their phone or service. Now that sounds like the person calling you is protected, but what about you, Well, as a counter-measure, in some countries/regions and according to the local regulations, telecom operators are required to also allow a counter service to either block or reveal hidden numbers (restricted caller IDs) calls, this means that you can get the information you need straight from your operator, and it usually takes just a few moments.
For the US the procedure is as follows if it is a blocked number you can use*57 or *69 to get the information you need on the caller and especially in case of *57 to notify the authorities on the situation. So *69 will send the message to your provider that you need to know who is calling you and you will get the information on the number and the owner quite quickly. But if you use *57 not only will you get the information, but you will also be notifying the authorities that the caller is abusive and is harassing you. So, make sure you know which one you should use depending on the frequency of the blocked calls. Once you have the information you can decide which steps to take. You can simply tell the authorities if you feel unsafe about the caller, or you can decide to call them back and confront them. Finally, you can simply do none of the above and just block the number without any further actions. It is all up to you.
The choice is easy if it is about a spammy phone salesman or a robocall, but if it is a real person doing it just to harass you it is important to consider legal steps as well.
The most important thing to remember is that you don’t have to take it, whether it is an unknown or blocked number you have the right to know who is calling you. That knowledge lets you decide whether or not you want to answer the call, block the number, or report it to the authorities. But remember the caller doesn’t have the power, you do.