When did Uncle Joe become a skip-tracer?

[jerryreeve]

thread461-470152 is a post that states in its entirety:

"I manage the telecommunications for a financial service company and when it comes to collecting on accounts, some customers block our calls. So as a get around, skip trace agents research the family members of the customers that block our calls and get their telephone numbers. I load those numbers as out going ANI and we get through.

My question is does any one know what the legal ramifications are for sending out ANI that does not belong to the calling party?"

I have long known that this is possible to do but never saw anything quite so blatant.

I beleive that if there is nothing presently existing to preclude this type of activity, there soon will be with actions of this nature hapening (of course this assumes that people affected by one of these calls know what happened and makes complaints)

Your Comments? JerryReeve
Communications Systems Int'l
com-sys.com

 

[sleipnir214]

I don't know about ANI editing, but let me ask another question. It might shed some light on the ethics of the situation.

Suppose that I did not have call blocking or caller id, but that I were monitoring calls through my answering machine.

If I get a call from the financial service company, I simply refuse to pick up and I ignore the message recorded by the machine.

The question is, would it be unethical for the financial service company to impersonate one of my family members to get me to pick up the call? Would it be illegal? Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

TANSTAAFL!

 

[mattKnight]

sleipnir214
>The question is, would it be unethical for the financial service company to impersonate one of my family members to get me to pick up the call? Would it be illegal?
Yes and maybe...

Probably not illegal from a communications POV, but sharp practice and certainly unethical. It may be illegal from the POV of the financial regulators.

It should result in a complaint to the regulatory body... and just to be pedantic, I have the opportunity to (and can) recognise my family members' voices...
Take Care

Matt
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

 

[CajunCenturion]

I think this is a good question, and first all, with respect to the legality of such behavior, I don't have a clue.

From an ethical perspective, both sleipnir214 and I, after some discussion, have come to the consensus that its one thing to go undercover and hide your identity, such as an intelligence agent, or an undercover cop, but it is all together different to assume the identify of another real person. To expose an innocent party to repurcussions would be wrong.

With respect to this specific question, we felt it may be okay to hide your own true number, or to perhaps code to ANI to a fictitious number, but that it's wrong to use the number of a family member, thereby impersonating another. Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[sleipnir214]

After debating my question with CajunCenturion outside the forum, I guess I'm going to give the answer we came up with.

The financial company's act is unethical. But not because it is misrepresenting itself as another entity. It's action is unethical because it is representing itself as a real person.

The act of misrepresentation cannot itself be unethical. If this were so, every undercover cop would by definition be acting unethically.

But if that cop takes on the identity of an existing person, that person could end up dealing with the consequences of the cop's activities. And we have an ethical obligation to keep others from taking the consequences of our actions.

Although the undercover cop thought experiment is an extreme case, I think it illuminates the original question.

If the financial institution had a phone number registered to itself under a fictitious name and used that number, I see no ethical problem with editing the ANI of the call. Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

TANSTAAFL!

 

[CajunCenturion]

:-D I like your answer sleipnir214.

Would it be unethical for me to award you a star for it?
Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[Kjonnnn]

Well I just say this.

I used to be a collection agent. Many of the ways to get money from default accounts are ethical, but ride the line between that and illegal.

Many companies, especially finance companies get sued regularly.

 

[Kjonnnn]

Well I just say this.

I used to be a collection agent. Many of the ways to get money from default accounts are UNethical, but ride the line between that and illegal.

Many companies, especially finance companies get sued regularly.

 

[sleipnir214]

They didn't listen to their mothers. Mine told me more times than I can count, "Two wrongs don't make a right." Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

TANSTAAFL!

 

[jerryreeve]

OK, now add this into the mix (which i think is totally illeagle) they can use taking the appearance of another's telephone number dial a long distance carrier (1010288) and the LD carrier would then bill that other number. should the ability to do this at all be controlled by the phone co so that only the numbrs that belong to the entity can be sent for Outgoing Line Identity? JerryReeve
Communications Systems Int'l
com-sys.com

 

[sleipnir214]

I know I can't answer that question. It involves technical details about the phone system I do not know.

With so many companies providing local phone service, I would imagine that locking out what you decry is probably technically impossible under current protocols. Since a phone call must cross company borders, each company likely have to simply trust that the OLI is correct.

It's like SMTP. No one, when the protocol was developed, ever suspected that the protocol would be abused so badly by spammers. The protocol can be fixed, but then how do you implement the new protocol? Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

TANSTAAFL!

 

[petermeachem]

That must surely be illegal isn't it? I'm sure it would be in Europe. Perhaps there are some lawyers around.

Peter Meachem

A fascinating read, explains a lot.

http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm

 

[jerryreeve]

What this capability came from is the enhanced 911 service that is mandated in some areas. The 911 centers want to see exactly where a call came from in an area (such as office building) so with ISDN Prime telephone service the customer (phone equipment) will send out an outgoing number identifier that the 911 center sees and is able to respond directly to the desk that generated the call. The telephone installer is supposed to correlate this outgoing number with a direct incoming dial number to make the location unique what Avaya1 is doing is assigning different outgoing numbers depending on who he wants to impersonate. I am just seeing plenty of ways this can be abused. JerryReeve
Communications Systems Int'l
com-sys.com