A nuisance call is an unwanted and unsolicited

telephone call A telephone call, phone call, voice call, or simply a call, is the effective use of a connection over a telephone network between the calling party and the called party. Telephone calls are the form of human communication that was first enabl ...

. Common types of nuisance calls include

prank call A prank call (also known as a crank call, a hoax call, or a goof call) is a telephone call intended by the caller as a practical joke played on the person answering. It is often a type of nuisance call and can be illegal under certain circumsta ...

telemarketing Telemarketing (sometimes known as inside sales, or telesales in the UK and Ireland) is a method of direct marketing in which a salesperson solicits prospective customers to buy products, subscriptions or services, either over the phone or throu ...

calls, and silent calls. Obscene phone calls and other threatening calls are criminal acts in most jurisdictions, particularly when

hate crime Hate crime (also known as bias crime) in criminal law involves a standard offence (such as an assault, murder) with an added element of bias against a victim (individual or group of individuals) because of their physical appearance or perceived ...

is involved. Unsolicited calls may also be used to initiate telephone frauds.

Fax machine Fax (short for facsimile), sometimes called telecopying or telefax (short for telefacsimile), is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a telephone number connected to a printer or other out ...

s may also receive junk faxes via unsolicited calls.

Caller ID Caller identification (Caller ID) is a telephone service, available in analog and digital telephone systems, including voice over IP (VoIP), that transmits a caller's telephone number to the called party's telephone equipment when the call is ...

provides some protection against unwanted calls, but can still be turned off by the calling party. Even where end-user caller ID is not available, calls are still logged, both in billing records at the originating telco and via

automatic number identification Automatic number identification (ANI) is a feature of a telecommunications network for automatically determining the origination telephone number on toll calls for billing purposes. Automatic number identification was originally created by the Am ...

, so the perpetrator's phone number can still be discovered in many cases. However, these do not provide complete protection: harassers can use payphones and, in some cases, caller ID (but not necessarily automatic number identification itself) can be spoofed or blocked. Mobile telephone abusers can (at some cost) use "throwaway" mobile phones or SIMs.

Voice over IP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also known as IP telephony, is a set of technologies used primarily for voice communication sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. VoIP enables voice calls to be transmitted as ...

users may send bogus caller ID or route calls through servers in multiple countries. Even in these cases, with sufficient law enforcement and telco effort, persistent abusers can often be tracked down by technical means. Call screening is another countermeasure against unsolicited calls. Most telephone companies have a department devoted to handling complaints regarding unsolicited phone calls. In criminal cases such as obscene or threatening phone calls, many police departments have dedicated resources devoted to dealing with such cases. In the United Kingdom, the communication regulator

Ofcom The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, internet, telecommunications and mail, postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-rang ...

offers a service to report on silent calls while the

Telephone Preference Service The Telephone Preference Service (TPS) is the United Kingdom's official do not call list. It allows businesses and individuals to opt out of unsolicited marketing calls. Similar do not call lists are implemented in other countries, such as the ...

(TPS) allows consumer to register on a do-not-call-list for marketing calls. On December 19, 2018, the

Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC; ) is a public organization in Canada tasked with the mandate as a regulatory agency tribunal for various electronic communications, covering broadcasting and telecommunic ...

(CRTC) announced that beginning December 19, 2019, phone providers will be required to impose universal, network-level filtering of all calls that " urportto originate from telephone numbers that do not conform to established numbering plans".

References

Telephone crimes Teletraffic {{law-enforcement-stub

See also

References