Last night my mobile rang and the following number appeared on the screen 009999999, I did not answer it and it hung up befor it went to answer phone. Any ideas what this was?

Johnny Debt wrote on Mar 1^st, 2006 at 7:09am:

Last night my mobile rang and the following number appeared on the screen 009999999, I did not answer it and it hung up befor it went to answer phone. Any ideas what this was?

I had a strange number of a similar non uk format to this appear on my mobile a few weeks ago from a small company that admitted they were calling me using some kind of voip system.

I would suggest its a CLI from the country via which their voip provider is routing mobile calls back in to the UK.  If it was a reverse charge SMS it would just arrive anyway and wouldn't require you to take a decision about whether or not to answer a phone call.

Hello. Most likely to be someone who knows the Calling Line Identification (CLI) system well and who therefore provides a CLI, avoiding being trapped by Anonymous Call Rejection (ACR), but who provides a false CLI so that they can not be identified - or called back...
I believe that Ofcom consider this to be illegal and so they should be encouraged to have your mobile provider track back and identify the miscreant and so have it stopped.
I hope that that answers your question, although I fear that it may not actually help you that much. :(

Tanllan wrote on Mar 1^st, 2006 at 9:40am:

Hello. Most likely to be someone who knows the Calling Line Identification (CLI) system well and who therefore provides a CLI, avoiding being trapped by Anonymous Call Rejection (ACR), but who provides a false CLI so that they can not be identified - or called back... I believe that Ofcom consider this to be illegal and so they should be encouraged to have your mobile provider track back and identify the miscreant and so have it stopped.(

Again it strikes me as likely to be a cheap voip call routing company who provides a fictitious CLI rather than having calls rejected by Anonymous Caller Rejection etc.  I doubt that any private individual has the ability to alter or falsify their CLI.

wrote on Mar 1^st, 2006 at 9:47am:

Tanllan wrote on Mar 1st, 2006 at 9:40am: Hello. Most likely to be someone who knows the Calling Line Identification (CLI) system well and who therefore provides a CLI, avoiding being trapped by Anonymous Call Rejection (ACR), but who provides a false CLI so that they can not be identified - or called back... I believe that Ofcom consider this to be illegal and so they should be encouraged to have your mobile provider track back and identify the miscreant and so have it stopped.( Again it strikes me as likely to be a cheap voip call routing company who provides a fictitious CLI rather than having calls rejected by Anonymous Caller Rejection etc.  I doubt that any private individual has the ability to alter or falsify their CLI.

Sorry, sloppy English. I meant someone working withinh a company and should have said which, etc. But my suggestion fits well with your VoIP suggestion. Either way it is wrong and should be reported.
Good Luck JD.

I also had a missed call the other day on my mobile from 0123456789. Most odd. Anyone else had this one or know what it is?

sirp2000 wrote on Mar 1^st, 2006 at 11:52am:

I also had a missed call the other day on my mobile from 0123456789. Most odd. Anyone else had this one or know what it is?

I had no luck with attempting to report a falsified 020 7 CLI that was unobtainable if dialled that was used by the telephone exchange system of Dolphin Square Trust in London for several years.  Eventually they did change to using Unavailable instead which was hardly an improvement as I now have no idea at all who the call is from.

Is it possible to trace the number back to an actual company? Obviously because of the business that I  am in (Debt Help), it would be interesting to see if creditors and debt collection agencies are using these tactics.

Johnny Debt wrote on Mar 1^st, 2006 at 12:03pm:

Is it possible to trace the number back to an actual company? Obviously because of the business that I  am in (Debt Help), it would be interesting to see if creditors and debt collection agencies are using these tactics.

Your mobile company may possibly know the real originating number but I am sure will refuse to give it to you.

You should try registering a complaint at www.ico.gov.uk if your mobile provider won't help.  Do you know the actual company who was calling and their name and address in spite of their use of a false CLI?  If so you may be able to get somewhere with the ICO or by escalating the complaint to www.otelo.org.uk or www.ofcom.org.uk all of whom are very good at passing the buck if they possibly can.

It is actually possible to put a false number on CLI.

The Company which supplies our telephones for my local party (hapens to be in the same building) can put any CLI on our phones. We did used to have an 0871 displayed, then I got that changed to an 01553. It seems that its displaying 001 000 000 0000 now.

I think this is more a messup on the system then it is deliberate.

mc661 wrote on Mar 1^st, 2006 at 2:31pm:

I think this is more a messup on the system then it is deliberate.

I suggest that adoption of voip calling methods in conjunction with non uk specific voip hardware or voip provider may to blame for many of these kinds of problems?

mc661 wrote on Mar 1^st, 2006 at 2:31pm:

..The Company which supplies our telephones for my local party (hapens to be in the same building) can put any CLI on our phones. We did used to have an 0871 displayed, then I got that changed to an 01553. It seems that its displaying 001 000 000 0000 now...

I didn't think it was as easy/simple as that.  Especially didn't know they could have any number displayed on our CLI's.

It would be easy then to have the outgoing CLI as maybe homeoffice, bank or any company for that matter.

bbb_uk wrote on Mar 1^st, 2006 at 5:49pm:

It would be easy then to have the outgoing CLI as maybe homeoffice, bank or any company for that matter.

I wonder if with some Voip calling options if the choice of CLI presented is not down to the customer who set up the account?

Presentation Number -Type 3 is an option that businesses can subscribe to, which lets them send any number they like (technically) although they're supposed to sign in blood to say they'll only ever send valid numbers which belong to their organisation.

BT however don't seem to offer this option, preferring to screen all numbers before passing them into the network.     Other operators 'though are another matter.   Often they just don't know how to program their equipment and leave screening turned off  -  which can then let anything through.

This sort of network pollution can only increase when OfCom allows such  self regulation  and BT are quite right not to subscribe to such nonsense.

joe65 wrote on Mar 1^st, 2006 at 10:08pm:

This sort of network pollution can only increase when OfCom allows such  self regulation  and BT are quite right not to subscribe to such nonsense.

Unfortunately Ofcom's regulatory system relies on a sort of benevolent 1930s view of business behaviour in which everyone is a "jolly decent chap" and "always plays the game don't you know old boy"! ::)

Its a shame then that many telecoms businesses are in fact little better than legalised electronic cattle rustlers! :o

I've had several odd experiences of CLI recently. Certainly some are VoIP account numbers, as I got my own back to me (8 figures plus a leading zero); that account also allows a choice of its phone numbers to be shown and I have read elsewhere that they are considering allowing other numbers which you can prove are yours.

Trying out a couple of other things recently, I discovered something we've been told before - that the ID is actually available to networks but not to the destination - seems to be true, as I could call a couple of numbers and have my caller ID read out to me. But it wasn't my ID, just one of the providers routing the call; eg I called a UK freephone number via a US SIP address and found I had a UK 0200 number.

Other people here will know a lot more about the technicalities of it, but it strikes me that some call routing involves four or five links, and if the original ID is not carried through, or another one masks it, then it is usually shown as withheld rather than some random or actual other number being applied.

On one international SIM I have, the caller ID is sometimes the actual caller, sometimes withheld, but I've also had Russian, Bahrain, Singapore and French numbers indicated; on another forum, someone suggested the 00973 one was a US one without the 1 shown, which also happens, but when I called it there were bilingual English and Arabic announcements.

Another int'l SIM has all caller ID withheld for all incoming and outgoing calls, but I've received one callback from an Irish number (first 0 missing though), and I have found out the ID actually sent by the network.

That will be the tricky stage - surely it is or should be illegal to spoof real IDs, as they can be used to fraudulently obtain phone calls made via other providers, eg I spoof your ID to pay for my 18185 calls - but it probably won't work as they may see another number as well.

I've read NGM complaining on another thread about foreign IDs withheld by BT; whilst he probably has a point when it's all calls, at least some of these will be unavailable due to the cheap routing methods used including VoIP - I wonder if one caller ID I got is actually an IP address without the dots(0217...), and I've had voicemail emails via 1899 from an IP address.

So, to answer the question after all this prattling on, and as others said, the ID may be some default account number applied by a VoIP provider that hasn't set up caller ID properly, but it probably doesn't imply something sinister.

Sorry if this is a stupid question.

If I receive a call diplaying "009999999" does that mean that if I press the option to call that number, will it dial "009999999" or is there another number lurking underneath?

Johnny Debt wrote on Mar 3^rd, 2006 at 11:17am:

Sorry if this is a stupid question. If I receive a call diplaying "009999999" does that mean that if I press the option to call that number, will it dial "009999999" or is there another number lurking underneath?

It will dial 009999999 but of course there is no such number so you will get number unobtainable or equivalent if you call it.