# Tracking the owner of a private number



## Palerider

Over the past four weeks my 15 year old who is on Meteor has been receiving calls from a private number, at first he dealt with it ok, now he answers and hangs up but it is getting messier with call frequency increasing probably because of the school holidays. I was told about it today and asked him to look up his phone and we wrote down all call times from this private number over the last three days, in total there were 26, the most recent I answered a few moments ago, they hung up on me.

Is it possible for his phone provider to track down who is making these nuisance calls hiding behind a private number, I have to say I take this quite seriously.

Apart from using a whistle each time he takes a call from this private number has anybody any ideas on tracing the maker/s of these nuisance calls, I don't see this as an issue for the Garda...yet anyway.


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## niceoneted

Reject the call rather than answer it. Or just let it ring out .


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## bazermc

Simple, ignore the calls and turn the phone off at night to prevent disturbances.

If it keep going ditch the sim card and get a new number

if it is private number lot a whole lot can be done to track it


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## uptomyeyesin

Call Meteor and report it. 

A person can hide a private number from you, but they can't hide it from the network they are calling. If you report it to meteor, they wont tell you the phone number but they can log the details themselves and if the Gardai ever want it meteor can share with them. 

Also I would think it is serious enough to report it to the Gardai. Someone is trying to harrass your teenager, if they get bored of it, they might try messaging. 

It might just be another 15 year old crushing on yours and wanting to hear his voice but maybe it is meaner than that, the Gardai can offer advice too on how to handle. Plus if it does escalate to messages or other things, you have the record of how long it has been going on.


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## Pique318

I just found this out recently and if you have a smartphone it will work.
Download 'Hullomail' - It's a voicemail app that uses your data rather than having to call voicemail as some providers (Three in particular) charge for calls to voicemail but give unlimited data.

Anyway, download it, set it up etc and it takes over from your regular voicemail.

Now the next time the annoying call comes in, DO NOTHING.
Let the call go to voicemail.
Once the call is handed over to Hullomail, the 'Private Number' that rang you displays its number to Hullomail, which then shows it to you as a missed call.

Dunno if this is a bug in Hullomail which will be fixed, but it currently works so you can use it and get the number of the idiot annoying you.


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## demoivre

Palerider said:


> Apart from using a whistle each time he takes a call from this private number has anybody any ideas on tracing the maker/s of these nuisance calls, I don't see this as an issue for the Garda...yet anyway.



AFAIK it's only through an official complaint to the guards that they will trace the number.


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## alexandra123

You could also answer the call and just leave it sitting on the counter top but don't listen. Let them waste their credit or run up their bill !


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## burmo

Some phones have an automatic reject function from private numbers.


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## Sandals

Get a male (perhaps a female would have the same effect, I dont know) to answer the answer the call saying "Hello Garda Station". Aware of someone who had nuisance calls and this trick worked, line went dead immediately and no more calls.


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## Wexfordman

Pique318 said:


> I just found this out recently and if you have a smartphone it will work.
> Download 'Hullomail' - It's a voicemail app that uses your data rather than having to call voicemail as some providers (Three in particular) charge for calls to voicemail but give unlimited data.
> 
> Anyway, download it, set it up etc and it takes over from your regular voicemail.
> 
> Now the next time the annoying call comes in, DO NOTHING.
> Let the call go to voicemail.
> Once the call is handed over to Hullomail, the 'Private Number' that rang you displays its number to Hullomail, which then shows it to you as a missed call.
> 
> Dunno if this is a bug in Hullomail which will be fixed, but it currently works so you can use it and get the number of the idiot annoying you.



Sorry,  but that's rubbish. 

To the op, report it to the garda,  don't let it continue


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## Time

If it is an unregistered number there won't be a lot the police can do.


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## Wexfordman

Yes there is. Un registered numbers still have activities which can identify owner!


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## Time

This guy could be super cautious by always topping up in cash and never uses supermarket loyalty cards to track his purchases. Not using GPS or apps also helps. 

Apart from narrowing him down to an area the radius of 3 miles from a mast, there is not much they can do.


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## Palerider

Most kids register their phones with their provider to get extra call credit, a friendly Garda told me this and says in most cases the owner of the phone can be traced with the help of the provider which is given in all cases in which a complaint is made to the Garda, it does not have to be threatening either.

I answered his phone one night to another one of these private numbers I guess about a couple of weeks back and told the caller their number was tracable and if they called again I would ensure the Garda followed up, there has been no further calls, problem solved.


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## Wexfordman

Time said:


> This guy could be super cautious by always topping up in cash and never uses supermarket loyalty cards to track his purchases. Not using GPS or apps also helps.
> 
> Apart from narrowing him down to an area the radius of 3 miles from a mast, there is not much they can do.



Your getting very cloak and daggerish   i doubt very much the user is being that secretive, and in any case accurate location tracking without use of gps is a lot more accurate than you would think!


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## athens2004

Years ago this happened my son with text messages. I did go to Guards who said they could not do anything as it was Private Number but told me to turn off phone for two weeks which I did.  Now I dont know what happened after that but the messags stopped.,,,,,so I guess they were able to do something after all.


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## AlbacoreA

Switching to a phone that can reject these private numbers seems a good option. (and reporting it too)

Some info here. 

[broken link removed]


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## vandriver

athens2004 said:


> Years ago this happened my son with text messages. I did go to Guards who said they could not do anything as it was Private Number but told me to turn off phone for two weeks which I did.  Now I dont know what happened after that but the messags stopped.,,,,,so I guess they were able to do something after all.



Your phone number is sent with a text even if you have the setting to withhold number.


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## Sue Ellen

Palerider said:


> Most kids register their phones with their provider to get extra call credit



Only mentioned to Vodafone the other day about registration credit and they said that this is a thing of the past with all the companies these days.


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## Leo

athens2004 said:


> I did go to Guards who said they could not do anything as it was Private Number...


 
They generally don't want to, but all phone calls are traceable. It'll generally require a court order to the phone companies to retrieve their records, but they will have the information. Their billing systems depend on it!


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## joeysully

You should buy a whistle and blow it when you answer the phone. Wont take long for them to get a pain in the ear. 

Also try some "heavy breathing" - turn the tables on them!


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## Pique318

Wexfordman said:


> Sorry,  but that's rubbish.
> 
> To the op, report it to the garda,  don't let it continue



You're sadly incorrect.

It is true, it works and I have proven it.
I noticed it by accident at first as the phone showed missed call from private number, and HulloMail showed the number.
I tested it getting a friend to 'hide' his number beforfe calling me and letting it go to HulloMail. 

Sure eough, the phone showed a missed call from a private number but HulloMail showed the contact.

Please don't dismiss something as 'Rubbish' just because you think it is. I don't waste my time writing crap in an effort to help if it doesn't actually work.


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## Wexfordman

No, I'm not incorrect, you are mistake. Hullomail does not interact with the network, it is a software app on the phone which simply answers a call for you and records the end user as a normal digital answering machine does. It has some  ice features I that you can manage the  recording afterwards etc. 


Anyway, as the application does not interact with the network or your origional voicemail service it is impossible for it to recover a number which is not sent by the network to your handset in the first place. 

I design gsm and umts networks, and I can gaurantee you that the app does not recover information that the network does not even send. 

And at 6.99 to purchase, I wouldn't recommend the op or anyone else waste their money if that is the reason  they want the app in the first place. 

And I am Not dismissing something as rubbish because I think it is, I am dismissing it as rubbish because I know it is, as someone who designs and plans gsm and umts networks. 

This is no reflection n on the app itself which looks nice and has some nice features, but it is not designed to do what you say it does, and it cannot work miracles
Regards
Eamon


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## solair

@Wexfordman,

Hullomail's actually a hosted voicemail system operated by a private company separate from your mobile operator. It is not a digital answering machine in your phone.

The software you install on your phone sets up conditional diverts to an 076 VoIP number that is used to access your voicemail box on their system.
So, when a call comes to your phone, instead of being diverted to your network voicemail it goes to Hullomail's 076 number.

The messages are then made available to you through the app on your phone and can be played directly without any need to dial into anything (data connection is required to download them) i.e. visual voicemail.

Or, you can dial into their system and use a pin like old fashioned traditional voicemail.

It also delivers the message to your email account if you set that up.

It also has some fancy functions like it can play out specific messages to specific numbers. Or, it even run the messages through voice recognition software and produce a rough transcript of what's said so you don't have to go to the hassle of listening to everything.

When someone calls from a 'blocked number', all that happens is the number is your local exchange / mobile network sends the call to the receiving exchange/switch with a flag attached that indicates the number should not be displayed. Your number is still sent, and the receiving exchange knows it and may log it in its records. The system trusts the exchange at the end of the route to respect that flag and not display the number.

There was apparently brief glitch on the HulloMail servers that meant those flags were being ignored and blocked numbers were displaying. So, when the app displayed a voicemail or a missed call, it was getting the full blocked number from the server.

They've fixed that issue now and blocked numbers no longer appear as anything other than "Private Number"

Basically, if you call from any phone, your number is always sent and can be retrieved by the receiving party's phone system. Some office systems don't necessarily respect that flag either and when your call is going outside Ireland and onto VoIP networks you've no idea what level of access the end user might have or whether the system is programmed to understand those display / do not display flags. So, I would absolutely never assume that your calling line identity is absolutely private.

In cases of harassment or criminal activity, the police services can most certainly also request access to the logs from the local exchange at the receiving end and it will have all that data stored in its log files. So, it can be quite easily retrieved.

Basically, if you're dumb enough to make harassing phone calls, you can be caught out very easily!


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## Wexfordman

That sounds much more plausable, thanks solair


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