Can You Block a Spoofed Number?

On my conventional landline call display shows "Caller_Reveal" and the number is "1-111-111-1111".  I was in a rush and accidentally picked up to hear dead air and a disconnect tone.  A few seconds later a call arrived from a number I already had blocked.  My only blocked calls have been a shield against hustlers and the most recent one was a response to one of those stupid warnings (in barely comprehensible heavily accented english) about how my windows operating system was broken etc. so I'm betting this is the same outfit.  Another website suggests that this number is known to have been used by a variety of spoofers and since it's a digital call the old fashioned reverse attacks like blowing a whistle into the phone receiver or just generally funnin' with the unwelcome caller are useless cause nobody's actually there.  Apparently some people have been receiving calls from this number repeatedly throughout the day.  I just tried to block it using that feature on my Panasonic handset so hopefully it works.

Just so you know, the "reverse attack" of blowing a whistle into the phone receiver is pointless. All you're doing it hurting your own ears. The modern phone system does not allow transmission of sounds at a harmful level.

As far as i know it should. There are alot of settings in your call settings

If you are going to block all spoofed calls, then your phone would be almost crippled, and that's what I've essentially done. My cell phone can only ring calls from my contacts, others have to leave a voice message. I tried blocking area codes, first four, five and six numbers of my phone number with various android apps....and I finally gave up.

That's why the scammers keep spoofing Caller ID numbers. They hope one of their spoofed numbers will match the number of one of your contacts and thereby trick you into answering the phone.

I don't block spam calls, I add spammers to my contacts and customize them.  Spammers names begin with zzzz* followed by the area codes and brief descriptions.  Numbers are listed in area code groups, 4 or 5 per contact..  The custom ringtone is "no ring." The calls goes into my "missed call" list.  Thus, I also have a record to report to spam banks.

As per the title of the thread, Time-Warner/Spectrum has (at least in my area) the option to block calls giving inaccurate caller ID info (spoofed, in other words).  It is in the same area of the site as blocking private calls.  While today a nuisance caller bothered me-- presumably from a real number, now blocked, not that he can't change the one he calls from and start up again but if it weren't at least somewhat bothersome for them to do that they wouldn't spoof in the first place-- the anti-spoofed number feature has cut down quite a bit on nuisance calls.  If your phone provider has it, I suggest activating it.

Of course you can block any number with the block options of your phone, phone service provider or a blocking service, but that is not what the Original Poster was asking about. The OP had wanted to know "can you block the "real number" when the Caller ID number is spoofed?" and the answer is simply NO, you can't, something everyone who replied to him failed to mention. There are plenty of replies explaining how blocking does work however.

Quote:

the anti-spoofed number feature........

Its not an "anti-spoof" feature, since it can't distinguish the difference between the device's real number and the spoofed number. It only knows the number to block is the one you selected to be blocked.
We call it Call Blocking.

A look at features on the Time Warner/Spectrum shows that they offer this as a feature of their telephone service:

Quote:

•With Enhanced Block Anonymous Calls, you can block calls from people who "spoof" their caller ID. A growing number of telemarketers and scammers try to reach our customers by using a false caller ID ("spoofing") or sometimes no Caller ID information at all to get past defenses like Block Anonymous Calls. Enhanced Block Anonymous Calls will intercept these calls. Callers will hear a message explaining why the call has been rejected. Please note that this setting may block some legitimate calls, such as incoming international long distance.

Support for your Voice Features

Apparently Time Warner/Spectrum claims that they can tell when a call has been spoofed and can block those calls automatically.
I guess this is about as close to blocking the "real number" of the spoofing caller as we can get.

Its not really an "anti-spoofing" feature, it is just a fancy way to say they will block any calls that don't have an ID, same thing with blanket blocking all "anonymous" and "'unavailable" IDs.  Its just the phone service's way of marketing  something to give their customers a warm fuzzy feeling about using their service.
Might as well block all "800 Service" calls and call it "Super Duper Telemarketer Blocking". lol

Quote:

Enhanced Block Anonymous Calls allows you to block calls from people who intentionally remove their caller ID information. At times, the most aggressive telemarketers will fully remove their caller ID information in an attempt to contact our customers. Our Phone users can choose to block all calls from people who intentionally remove their caller ID information by using Enhanced Block Anonymous Calls. Note: This setting may block some legitimate calls, such as incoming international long distance.

Your still only blocking whats on the caller ID, not the actual callers real number, since they can simply input a spoof number and still get thru to you. A true "Anti-spoofing" option would block the real number no matter what number they try to input into the caller ID, but as of yet that is not an option available to us.

The problem with blocking all "800 service" calls is that occasionally they are legitimate calls.  I know that I have received several of them from companies that should have their name in the caller id but did not.  There is no perfect answer to call blocking until we can devise a way to identify spoofed numbers from real numbers.  Then the criminals will have to get around that, which I am sure they will.

The only way I see a possible solution is for the phone companies to eliminate the "spoofing'' ability altogether. Make it a "special use only" for organizations that need the anonymity, like Womens shelters and  witness protection services, etc.

ps. Yeah the "800 Service" thing was just to poke fun at their marketing terminology.

what I did- set my home phone to forward to my Iphone  and block as needed - the scam/ debt  calls have went from daily to monthly now after about a month of blocking. Also my voice mail says thanks for calling without my name so they don't know who they are reaching.

Altho the original poster wasnt asking this, i think that a psuedo anti-spoofing feature as commentor Nimrod described above (and MikeHuntleton refuted) could be effective at "blocking" incoming spoofed phone numbers.

I'm not familiar with the "Enhanced Block Anonymous Calls" feature of Time Warner/Spectrum as discussed above, but lets say it can indeed detect whether or not an incoming phone number is spoofed (ie, the CallerID feature shows an incoming phone number, but that phone number isnt the actual incoming phone number).  Lets also say that altho spoofing is detected, the actual incoming phone number remains undetected.

This would be very useful.  U could then potentially select an automatic response to this incoming spoofed phone number.  Options might be to reject the call, send it to voicemail, or hav a recording ask the caller to identify themself before u even hear the call ring.  If the caller simply calls back using another spoofed phone number, u again wont be disturbed.

So even tho u never learn the actual originating phone number, knowing that the incoming call is spoofed allows u to remain undisturbed.  In that sense, the spoofed incoming phone number is effectively blocked, forcing the caller to un-spoof their phone number if they wish to communicate with u.  And the unspoofed phone number would better identify the caller, who u may not wish to speak with.