Calls From the Wild
Caller ID Doesn't Always Give a Number -- to the Providers' Benefit

By Don Oldenburg
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 21, 2006

Unknown, unavailable, out of area, anonymous, private. Clues to some "Da Vinci Code" mystery? Not exactly, but some experts say this string of words is now widely associated with another mystery. They're the display messages that appear when Caller ID doesn't ID the caller.

But, wait a second, why doesn't Caller ID identify every call and caller?

Good question, says Greg Smith, president and chief executive of Accudata Technologies in Allen, Tex., who thinks consumers who regularly see these terms flash on their Caller ID displays should be asking that of their telephone carriers.

"The caller's number should always show unless there is some technical difficulty. But the 'unknown,' 'unavailable' and 'out of area' . . . you should never get those," he says. "We all do get them, and the reason we do is we are all getting cheated."

Telephone companies have the technology not only to identify the number in nearly 100 percent of the calls you receive, says Smith, but also to identify the caller's name -- or at least the name listed on the phone's account. But how often does that happen? Half the time? Less?

"It is a financial decision some of these telephone carriers make," Smith says of why Caller ID services sometimes don't deliver.

In the spirit of full disclosure, you should know that Accudata Technologies is one of about 20 line information database (LIDB) companies nationwide in the business of collecting, storing and delivering telephone information -- including providing names and numbers of callers displayed via Caller ID. So Smith and his company have a vested interest in phone company Caller ID services operating at maximum efficiency. When a phone company can't find a caller's name and number in its database, it has to reach into other phone-info databases, such as Accudata's, and pay a small fee.

"We call it 'coop-etition' here," says Smith, adding that Accudata charges an average of a penny per look-up.

But some phone-service providers are unwilling to dip into the appropriate LIDB to provide the Caller ID info their customers are paying $6 to $8 for each month.

Why not? Do the math, says Smith. Say a typical telephone receives 200 calls a month. About half of those calls come from within the same phone system -- as when one BellSouth customer calls another BellSouth customer. For those calls, the caller's name and number are going to be in BellSouth's database, so it won't cost BellSouth anything to provide them.

But the other 100 calls come from outside the service provider's system. They require going to outside databases to fetch the info. At a penny per look-up, those Caller ID calls would cost a phone company about $1 a month per Caller ID customer. Let's say a phone company decides not to pay the penny to look into an outside database for half those calls. It saves itself 50 cents a month per Caller ID customer.

Chicken feed? Not when you figure that the nation's three biggest telecommunications companies -- Verizon Communications Inc., BellSouth Corp. and AT&T Inc. -- provide local and wireless phone service to more than 200 million customers. The savings for not paying the penny can be millions to tens of millions of dollars each month.

But the telephone companies say there are calls that Caller ID simply can't identify by name or number. Such as when a call comes from a customer who has activated per-call or per-line blocking, which prevents the name and number from appearing. Such as when a call comes from a customer of a smaller phone company whose technology doesn't deliver Caller ID. Such as when a call comes from a phone company that doesn't have its customers' names in a database, or from a customer who uses a dial-around long-distance company or a long-distance company whose facilities don't carry Caller ID. Also, some phone companies haven't entered into calling-name access agreements with other companies.

Sometimes when a call is made from an office or other place with its own phone system, such as a PBX system, only a main business number may appear. And then there's the Caller ID spoofing that's making news lately. Illegal telemarketers, con artists -- anyone -- can change how their phone numbers or names appear on Caller ID using spoofing technology available online. Callers can hide their identities or even make it appear that their calls are coming from your bank or the police.

Other than such exceptions, the major phone companies say their Caller ID services are getting the job done one way or another. "Verizon's Caller ID service works 100 percent of the time where available, unless there's a repair problem . . .," says Harry Mitchell, a Verizon spokesman. "Verizon does go outside its own databases to find calling names and numbers, and has agreements with other companies to access their databases."

AT&T provides its wireless and wireline Caller ID information through contracted database providers, says spokeswoman Tiffany O'Brien Nels. "In many cases, our ability to get access to the scope of caller information is dependent on whether or not an originator's name is stored. . . . Some providers also offer customers the opportunity to prevent parts of their Caller ID information from being shared."

Lisa Malloy, a Sprint Nextel Corp. spokeswoman, says there are "so many variables" ruling how efficient and accurate Caller ID services can be. "That's why nobody is willing to commit to 100 percent," she says.

Sprint Nextel uses Caller ID databases that are updated regularly, she says, but it's hard to keep pace with customers' info changes. "Just as soon as a database is created, there are inaccuracies because of the rate of numbers changing hands and people changing numbers," she says. "We are limited by the information available to us."

But Malloy concedes that there may be bottom-line considerations in how far a phone company will go to identify a caller outside its own or contracted databases. "Pennies are a lot of money," she says. "It is definitely a balancing act."

Smith says the problem is that customers are conditioned to accept spotty Caller ID service as normal, and phone companies aren't going to go the distance to provide better service unless consumers demand it. He urges consumers to complain to their phone companies and to the Federal Communications Commission if their Caller ID is hit-or-miss. "It requires an educated consumer today, someone who's willing to say 'Dad-gummit, I'm paying for this.' You have to at least try."

Phony Caller ID

Speaking of spoofing Caller ID info, the Federal Trade Commission two weeks ago charged a nationwide telemarketer of mortgage loans with phoning people whose numbers are listed on the National Do Not Call Registry -- while transmitting either no Caller ID information or bogus Caller ID information. In the commission's first case alleging transmission of false caller ID information, the FTC alleges that Scorpio Systems Ltd., a New Jersey telemarketing firm, spoofed fake displays or created blank Caller ID info to prevent consumers from contacting it to stop unwanted telemarketing calls. The FTC asked a New Jersey District Court for an injunction and civil penalties against the telemarketer for violating the Telemarketing Sales Rule.

Got questions or comments? A consumer complaint? A helpful tip? E-mail details toconsumer@washpost.comor write to Don Oldenburg, The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071. Because of the volume of mail, personal replies are not always possible.