Title: Dealing with Phone Spoofing: A Personal Experience
Have you ever encountered an unsettling situation where you start receiving feedback from friends about strange texts being sent from your phone number, but you’re not the one sending them? I recently found myself in this exact predicament, and I wanted to share my experience in hopes that it might help others who may face something similar.
While catching up with an old friend on a Zoom call, they recently informed me that they had received some odd messages from what appeared to be my number. Initially, I thought it could be a classic case of number spoofing, often used for scams. However, the messages turned out to be more benign, resembling typical questions like “new phone, who’s this?” Interestingly, they included photos commonly associated with “troll” accounts found across various social media platforms, which added another layer of confusion. This led me to suspect that someone may be engaging in number spoofing just to see how people would respond.
To better illustrate my situation, I’ve shared screenshots of the text messages on a Reddit post in the r/Verizon community, seeking advice from anyone who might have encountered something similar. If you’re interested, you can view the detailed post here.
After seeking help and sharing my story, I reached out to Verizon, who confirmed that the texts were not sent through their network. This leaves me with two possibilities: my Apple ID may have been compromised (which I’ve since changed), or someone successfully spoofed my number. I immediately informed my friend about the situation, as well as others who might be affected, encouraging them to reach out directly via call or email to clarify any misunderstandings.
Additionally, I want to clarify from my own observations: this eerie text exchange only seemed to affect that specific friend, and no one else had reached out regarding similar messages. Living in a remote area for the past few months due to the pandemic, my phone has rarely been out of reach from close family members and a few older coworkers, who likely wouldn’t have the technical savvy to pull something like this off.
This was definitely disconcerting, as it’s apparent that whoever is behind this is not attempting to pilfer personal information outright. Instead, they’ve chosen to send messages that effectively announce I
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