Stalking Victims Finally Get Their Revenge

New service unmasks blocked numbers

Stalkers beware: that girl you are stalking now knows your phone number.

A service launched this week gives harrased people everywhere the ability to unblock Caller ID information that the caller thinks is blocked.

TrapCall.com lets people rig some AT&T Inc. and T-Mobile USA phones so that if a call comes in with blocked Caller ID and is rejected, it rings again, this time displaying the number of the caller.

Of course like every good antistalker device in the world, there is a price. While the basic service if free the Web site charges for plans with more advanced services, like call recording and Caller ID with name and getting the address of the person calling. Okay that is rather scary and is probably why groups who help abused women are concerned.

The company still says the service can be useful for people who get harassing phone calls.

But Becky Moreno, a victim assistance coordinator at the Warsaw, Ind., police department, said TrapCall could be troublesome for victims of abuse because they often block Caller ID when reaching out to abusers. Victim centers sometimes block their IDs when they call victims as well, so abusive partners won't know who's calling.

"This program doesn't distinguish between those who really need to stay anonymous and those do just do it for other reasons," Moreno said.

But TelTech says it has a solution for those who need to stay anonymous. It's SpoofCard, a service lets callers assign a fake Caller ID when calling or even change the sound of their voice to the person on the other end. You can check out a demonstration of the service below. So instead of a stalker, now you are dealing with a a kidnapper and a ransom demand.

Calls with blocked Caller ID have never been perfectly anonymous. Calls to 1-800 numbers are unmasked, for instance, because the recipient pays for the call. This appears to be the loophole used by TrapCall. TelTech Systems, the company behind the service, did not return a message for comment.

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