Phones are increasingly central to our lives, but in their original role — as a means of making and receiving voice calls — they’ve become as much an annoyance as a convenience.  Most of us receive an overwhelming Number of unwanted, unsolicited phone calls in the run of a day, most of them scammy or spammy. 

While robocalls, on the  whole, are irritating, the creepiest may be the Silent calls: the ones where there’s nobody on the other end when we pick up or listen to the voicemail.  Those so-called ghost calls have a couple of explanations, and neither of them is necessarily good news. 

One (Relatively) Innocuous Reason for Silent Calls

One reason for silent calls, or “ghost” calls, is a by-product of everyday telemarketing technology.  Most telemarketing companies use some form of computer-operated auto dialer to make outgoing calls, and then when you answer the call you’ll be connected to the first available human. 

This system works pretty well as long as there are enough call center agents to handle the calls, but occasionally they’ll all be busy and unable to pick up.  When that happens, you’ll hear nothing but silence until somebody is able to pick up. (They could at least play the “Jeopardy” music, right?) 

Usually you won’t stay on the line until that happens, so you’ll remember it as a silent call.  It’s irritating, but it happens with perfectly legitimate calls: For example, a charity you’ve previously supported might reach out to solicit a new donation.  Unfortunately, other reasons for silent calls can be more malicious. 

Phone Calls That Hang Up when You Answer……and What They Can Lead To

Let’s say you’ve received a ghost call.  Now that it’s been confirmed that you’re willing to  answer a ringing phone, enterprising criminals can reach out to you with any number of phone-based scams.  Most of them follow a few familiar patterns, but the most prevalent and damaging are called imposter calls.  In 2020, the FTC’s Consumer Sentinel Network recorded a total of 2.2 million fraud reports, with imposter calls alone accounting for just under a half-million of those reports.  

They’re called “imposter” calls because the scammer pretends to be someone else, usually an authority figure of some sort: the IRS, your bank, the Social Security Administration, the police, or even ICE.  They’ll have a plausible story about why you need to act RIGHT NOW — it might be a “carrot” in the form of something you want, or a “stick” in the form of something you fear — but the goal is to keep you off-balance long enough to give them either money or your personal information. 

Engaging with scammers, even if you’re trying to intimidate or annoy them, is usually a bad idea.  Whether the scam is successful or not, that puts you on a list of potential “marks” who will actively respond to the caller.  From there, they feel (not without reason) they can get value from a call by learning which buttons to push. 

Silent Calls to Businesses

If you get silent calls in your workplace, instead of at home, there can be another threat at play.  Most business telephone systems — private branch exchanges, or PBXs — are computerized now, and internet-connected, and therefore vulnerable to hacking.  Those silent calls will often mean that an attacker is methodically probing your system for vulnerabilities. 

One provider deliberately set up a PBX and left it unprotected with its default password in place, just to see what would happen, and discovered that it took less than an hour to be compromised.  Once hackers have wormed their way inside your system, they can leverage its hardware and software — which you’re paying for! — to make their own robocalls and scam calls. 

This isn’t something you’ll deal with on your own, unless you’re a telecommunications IT pro (in which case you won’t need advice from us).  Instead, if you receive these ghost calls at your business, contact your phone systems provider to discuss what they’re doing to keep your system secure. 

What to Do about Silent Calls

To summarize, silent calls are an annoyance at best and a threat at worst.  So what can you do about them? 

Placing yourself on the Do Not Call Registry is a good starting point, because it will weed out those “auto dialer pause” calls from most legitimate sources (be patient, it can take a while to kick in and some classes of callers are exempt).  If there are specific numbers that call you repeatedly, you can block them individually on your phone and report them to the FTC (you’ll see that option on the homepage of the Do Not Call Registry). 

Installing a robocall-blocking app, or utilizing your phone carrier’s call-blocking services, is a more aggressive option.  Those can proactively evaluate incoming calls, and screen out the ones that are likely from scammy or spammy sources (our own Spokeo app is really good at that).

Hunt Down Silent Calls with Spokeo

Finally, if you’re really irritated, you can try to track down who’s behind those calls.  Go to Spokeo’s Reverse Phone Number Lookup, and enter the number that showed on your Caller ID display. 

The search results will show you the registered user’s name and location, as well as a wealth of other information (including whether it’s an individual or a company).  Our Phone Reputation Score will also give you a best-guess take on whether the call was legitimate, a scam or spam. 

Bear in mind, the number that shows on your display might have been spoofed by the caller in order to hide the call’s true point of origin.  In that case what you’ll see is the legitimate number’s owner, rather than the scammer’s identity.  Your time isn’t wasted, though, because the Reputation Score also shows how often that number has been searched lately, and whether other users have complained about it (and please, feel free to do that as well).  A sudden rash of complaints about a legitimate number can be a warning sign that scammers are indeed actively spoofing it. 

The Best Advice — Still — Is “Don’t Engage”

The best weapon you can use against these silent calls is prevention, in the form of call blocking from an app or your service provider.  The second best is to actively screen calls yourself, and block the number whenever you get a silent call.  It won’t stop any other scammer from trying their luck, but it’s a step in the right direction. 

Make a point of reporting the numbers of any scam or ghost calls with the FTC, and we certainly appreciate you making a complaint with us as well, so we can add the number to our own database of dubious callers. 

Finally, if you manage to trace a silent call (or any scam call) to its source, don’t engage with the scammers yourself.  However badly you want to give them a piece of your mind, it’s better to add that information to your complaint with the FTC.  If it’s a local number, it’s probably worth reporting to your local law enforcement agency as well. 

That way, the authorities have a chance to build a case against the scammers and get a conviction, and at the end of the day that’s the best answer to scam calls. 

Sources

• PBX Mechanic: Ghost or Phantom VoIP Calls
• SIP.us: Ghost Calls = You Should Be Worried!
• US Federal Trade Commission: National Do Not Call Registry
• US Federal Trade Commission: Consumer Sentinel Network 2020 Data Book