Caller ID spoofing

The practice of falsifying the name or number displayed to a call recipient, so a call can appear to originate from a government agency, a familiar area code, or a trusted organization regardless of its actual source. Neither the displayed name nor the displayed number is evidence of who is actually placing a call, which is why the callback habit in this program always uses a number the beneficiary already had rather than one shown on a screen.

Falsifying the number or name shown on an incoming call or message so it appears to come from a trusted person or organization. Because the display can be faked, a matching caller ID is not verification; only a channel you initiate and source yourself counts.

A technique that allows a caller to display a false name and phone number on the recipient's caller ID screen, including the real name and number of a legitimate institution such as a bank. Because spoofing is trivial for a determined scammer, caller ID display provides no reliable verification of a caller's identity.

A technique that allows a caller to display any phone number on a recipient's caller ID screen, regardless of the number actually being used to place the call. A displayed number matching a real bank or agency provides no reliable verification, because the display itself can be falsified.

The practice of setting a phone call's displayed name and number to something other than the true origin of the call, exploiting the fact that the phone network's caller ID system was not designed to authenticate who is actually calling. A spoofed display can show any name and number the caller chooses, including a real bank's or agency's actual published number.