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Author Topic: Prank Phone Calls (help please) Dagonee have advice?
BandoCommando
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Hiya folks,

I've been getting a rash of prank phone calls with caller ID blocked on my phone. I just ignore them, but it can get somewhat annoying.

I suspect that one or a few of my students got a hold of my cell number and are just goofing off over the summer. I would have thought that they would get bored eventually, but then a month later, I'll have a week where I'll get called 10 or more times by them.

What I want to know is, is there some way to track down who is calling me? At the very least, I'd like to contact their parents and let them know what is going on?

Does prank calling constitute harassment? Is it a criminal activity? If that's the case, should I report it to the authorities?

Obviously, I could simply change my number, but this would be a terrible inconvenience that I would like to avoid, if at all possible.

[ July 12, 2007, 01:20 PM: Message edited by: BandoCommando ]

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quidscribis
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When I lived in Canada, I could hit *69 or some such number to trace the call. It wouldn't give me the number, but it would keep the number on file in the event that I got three or more calls from the same number, in which case the police could follow up with criminal charges to whoever was making those calls.

I'd suggest checking in your phone book to see what your local code for that would be.

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erosomniac
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You can also set your phone to not accept calls from blocked numbers. Some services will let you direct blocked calls to a recording where you can say "Sorry, due to a flood of prank calls, I'm not accepting blocked calls, please *82 and try again."
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ClaudiaTherese
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My experience (and this is from many years ago) is that the phone company will trace it, but only if you are willing to pursue penalties. That is, to prevent them from getting a rash of requests from people who aren't really serious about it, they would only go to the trouble of tracking it down if I agreed to prosecute.

YMMV.

I'd suggest contacting your phone service carrier and asking about the options available to you.

---

PS: And yes, I think repeated prank calls is certainly a form of harrassment.

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brojack17
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Is you refrigerator running? [Taunt]


I'll bet kids today don't use the same ones we did when I was a kid.

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Artemisia Tridentata
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Do you have Prince Albert in a can?
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rivka
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A lot of those solutions (*69, call blocking, call tracing) will only work on a land line. And this is a cell, neh?
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ElJay
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Ask to speak to your provider's Nusience Call Bureau, and they will be able to tell you what options you have.
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mr_porteiro_head
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If you post your phone number here, I'll see what I can do about prank calls to you.
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MidnightBlue
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Do they actually say anything or just call and hang up?
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BandoCommando
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I'm not convinced that *69 will work on my cellphone, but I'll give it a shot next time it happens.

I cannot find a way to set my phone to block unidentified numbers, but perhaps I can check with my provider.

While many of us agree that prank calls constitute harassment, I want to know if the local authorities will respond with incredulity that I'm bothering them over something trivial, or if they will actually help. If you have any experience in such matters, please relate here so that I can know what to expect.

Yes my refrigerator is running, but we installed it on a treadmill so we don't have to catch it.

MPH, thanks for the offer, but I'll respectfully decline.

MidnightBlue, nowadays I just press ignore on the phone, but in the past they have done some of each: hanging up right away, saying something, or leaving a message.

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ClaudiaTherese
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quote:
Originally posted by BandoCommando:
While many of us agree that prank calls constitute harassment, I want to know if the local authorities will respond with incredulity that I'm bothering them over something trivial, or if they will actually help.

You will never know until you try, as such responses may vary widely, based on whomever you happen to connect with.

However, I can say with reasonable certainty that if you log the date and time of each of the calls in a complete record over several weeks to several months, you'll be taken more seriously than if you just say "I've been getting a lot of prank calls."

Why not start with your phone service provider? I expect that if you go to the police (or other local authorities) before you try to work it out with the phone service provider first, then you won't be taken as seriously, too.

[Unless, of course, it comes with documented threat or in the context of an ongoing stalking situation. But otherwise, they will likely want documentation of clear threat before they will act. That has indeed been my experience as a stalker morphed from an acquaintance into a very creepy fella. They wanted something specific to work with, and "it's annoying" was not specific for threat. The fact that he wrote a letter threatening to "blacken my eyes and break my jaw for spitting in the faces of the Children of God" was, oddly enough .]

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vonk
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As for the cops, it probably depends on where you live. I'm pretty sure if I called Houston PD they'd laugh at me. But if you live in a small town with not a lot of criminal activity, they might be willing to look into it.
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mr_porteiro_head
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quote:
MPH, thanks for the offer, but I'll respectfully decline.
Curses! Foiled again!
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Juxtapose
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You were so subtle too.
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ClaudiaTherese
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Also, spates of hang-up phone calls is likely not going to establish a pattern of intimidation -- unlike, say, spates of following you around or leaving gifts of dead flowers, etc. They will be balancing out how reasonable it is to feel threatened rather than just annoyed, I expect.

You can tag the thread for Dagonee in the title to see if he has some insight. he has been in a lot of courtrooms and worked with the police before.

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BandoCommando
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CT thanks for the info. I have, in fact, spoken with my provider on a couple of occassions, and they made it clear that they couldn't help me w/o authority from the police.

So far, nothing has been threatening, no. It is just a nuisance.

Tell you what, if it were during the school year, I'd be talking with my school's liason sheriff deputy.

In the meantime, though, I'll add Dag's name to the thread title. Thanks all.

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Dagonee
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The problem is that state laws vary so much. If you are still in Oregon, this law seems to apply:

quote:
166.090 Telephonic harassment. (1) A telephone caller commits the crime of telephonic harassment if the caller intentionally harasses or annoys another person:

(a) By causing the telephone of the other person to ring, such caller having no communicative purpose;

(b) By causing such other person’s telephone to ring, knowing that the caller has been forbidden from so doing by a person exercising lawful authority over the receiving telephone; or

(c) By sending to, or leaving at, the other person’s telephone a text message, voice mail or any other message, knowing that the caller has been forbidden from so doing by a person exercising lawful authority over the receiving telephone.

(2) Telephonic harassment is a Class B misdemeanor.

(3) It is an affirmative defense to a charge of violating subsection (1) of this section that the caller is a debt collector, as defined in ORS 646.639, who engaged in the conduct proscribed by subsection (1) of this section while attempting to collect a debt. The affirmative defense created by this subsection does not apply if the debt collector committed the unlawful collection practice described in ORS 646.639 (2)(a) while engaged in the conduct proscribed by subsection (1) of this section. [1987 c.806 §2; 1999 c.115 §1; 2005 c.752 §1]

(1)(a) seems to not require any proof that the person was told not to call. The other two require that you be able to show that you told them not to call - which is difficult because it could be someone else calling.

Knowing the statute and being able to provide the list of qualifying phone calls (including when you warned) should be enough to open a police report and get your provider on board.

I'd call the non-emergency police number and offer to come in for an interview when someone is available. Politely reference the statute and ask what can be done to get the phone company to monitor/trace for you.

This is a crime, and the police investigate crimes. If they don't have time, let them tell you that. Just realize that this is (and should be) a back-burner kind of investigation.

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BandoCommando
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quote:
Originally posted by Dagonee:
The problem is that state laws vary so much. If you are still in Oregon, this law seems to apply:

quote:
166.090 Telephonic harassment. (1) A telephone caller commits the crime of telephonic harassment if the caller intentionally harasses or annoys another person:

(a) By causing the telephone of the other person to ring, such caller having no communicative purpose;

(b) By causing such other person’s telephone to ring, knowing that the caller has been forbidden from so doing by a person exercising lawful authority over the receiving telephone; or

(c) By sending to, or leaving at, the other person’s telephone a text message, voice mail or any other message, knowing that the caller has been forbidden from so doing by a person exercising lawful authority over the receiving telephone.

(2) Telephonic harassment is a Class B misdemeanor.

(3) It is an affirmative defense to a charge of violating subsection (1) of this section that the caller is a debt collector, as defined in ORS 646.639, who engaged in the conduct proscribed by subsection (1) of this section while attempting to collect a debt. The affirmative defense created by this subsection does not apply if the debt collector committed the unlawful collection practice described in ORS 646.639 (2)(a) while engaged in the conduct proscribed by subsection (1) of this section. [1987 c.806 §2; 1999 c.115 §1; 2005 c.752 §1]

(1)(a) seems to not require any proof that the person was told not to call. The other two require that you be able to show that you told them not to call - which is difficult because it could be someone else calling.

Knowing the statute and being able to provide the list of qualifying phone calls (including when you warned) should be enough to open a police report and get your provider on board.

I'd call the non-emergency police number and offer to come in for an interview when someone is available. Politely reference the statute and ask what can be done to get the phone company to monitor/trace for you.

This is a crime, and the police investigate crimes. If they don't have time, let them tell you that. Just realize that this is (and should be) a back-burner kind of investigation.

Thank you VERY much for the detailed info Dagonee. One additional question. I live in one city, but commute to the city in which I work, which is also the city that I suspect the calls are coming from. Would you recommend that I call the non-emergency number in the town I live or the town I work? It should be mentioned that I live in a relatively small town, while I work in the state's capitol...

And I agree, this is a very small issue compared to what the police should be investigating.

The nice thing, as far as my record-keeping goes, is that my phone logs all calls sent and received from the moment I activated it, keeping track of time initiated and the duration. It should be pretty easy to show the frequency of times I receive calls from "Blocked Caller ID", though it will be impossible for me to prove on my own that these all originated from the same perpetrator.

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Dagonee
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quote:
Thank you VERY much for the detailed info Dagonee. One additional question. I live in one city, but commute to the city in which I work, which is also the city that I suspect the calls are coming from. Would you recommend that I call the non-emergency number in the town I live or the town I work? It should be mentioned that I live in a relatively small town, while I work in the state's capitol...
Where are you when you receive the calls? I'd be inclined to go to the department with jurisdiction over the address of record (your billing address, I guess). The crime is causing the phone to ring, so it likely has a nexus in the jurisdiction the call was made from and the one it was received in.

So, if you receive calls in the capitol, you could easily go to either one. The prosecutor would have to cover the issue precisely, but you can't be expected to know that. Just be up front about it.

Edit: to clarify, in Virginia, the prosecutor has to prove venue as an element of the crime. Other states have this requirement as well. You might want to start recording where you were when each call was received.

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