"SMS spoofing is illegal when used to commit fraud, identity theft,
or spread malware. In 2019, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) banned caller ID spoofing of text messages."
You sure could not tell this by looking at my cell phone;
clearly this ban is not enforced !
One definition of spoofing: "Disguising a communication from a malicious source as trusted."
Spoofing is when someone calls you on the telephone
but the number that you see on your telephone
is not the number that they are calling from.
The (supposed) reason that the government permits spoofing
is so that your doctor can call you from his cell phone,
but show you his office number, so that you return calls
to his office and not to his cell number.
Phone Call spoofing is supposedly not legal, but with such a big loophole that the
government does not go after offenders.
Spoofing is mostly used by people trying to cheat you;
why would any honest business or person would need to do this ?
Spoofing is WRONG.
There is no reason that any honest business or individual
should be hiding their telephone number from you if they are calling you.
The loophole should be closed and all spoofing stopped.
If scammers start spoofing your phone number,
it's most likely not a completely random accident.
Instead, it could mean that: "Data brokers sold your phone number to scammers."
I suggest that all valid users of spoofing be REGISTERED;
then all non-registered users can be more easily blocked.
The National Do-Not-Call registry does NOT stop spoofers from calling you.
Cell Phone spoofers wake me up in the morning, interrupt my work,
and distract me when I am driving, from one to four times per day.
And while we are talking about DoNotCall.gov: after I registered,
companies used the DoNotCall registry to get my telephone number
and call me until the grace period ended !
The below photo is from a cell PHONE call , not a text message;
I wish that they could do something similar for text messages.
It would be great if my cell phone could be set to NOT RING for these calls or texts;
I have to leave my ringer on to respond to emergencies from family members and friends.
My cell phone carrier puts a 'SCAM LIKELY' warning when an unregistered telephone number
calls me (thank you very much T-mobile), but it does not stop my cell phone from ringing,
waking me up, disturbing my work, or distracting me while driving, SO:
a suggestion for cell phone manufacturers:
how about putting an option on my phone to NOT RING
unless the caller is in my CONTACT LIST !