What makes an incoming call say 'suspected scam'?

[nickdalzell]

My mother's cell number (if not already saved in my contacts) shows up as 'suspected scam' if she calls any of my Android phones. If I have her number saved as a contact or synced with Google, this doesn't happen. Her number she's had for over a decade and on an iPhone.

She's having issues with friends of hers ignoring her calls for the same reason. What makes a phone suspect that a call is a scam? She does not do scams, and for some reason her number got added to some list or maybe some phones just false-positive out? It's new to me. I only noticed it when my ZTE Cymbal showed her number as 'suspected scam' before I added her as a contact. My Galaxy SII and HTC Thunderbolt either didn't do that stuff or didn't support it.

 

[Dannydet]

My interpretation is that unfortunately a phone number can be spoofed.
Once this happens it can be reported as spam and if it happens multiple times, a phone number is falsely classified as spam.
What agency controls this information?
Beats me....
Totally unknown by the victim and of no fault of their own.
Sadly this can happen to anyone without any knowledge of it whatsoever....

 

[ocnbrze]

You can also call your carrier. I believe they are the ones that put the labels on when a call goes thru......I think. Can't hurt to call them as well.

 

[nickdalzell]

She calls a lot of people (she has a lot of friends over many states) and is on the phone often, so could that have caused it? what little info I could find said something about 'too many outgoing calls' and others mentioned it being part of a phone's software called Name ID, but I dunno. It's the first I've ever heard of it (because until recently I've stuck with old phones)

 

[svim]

I agree with what @Dannydet posted, it sounds like your Mom's phone number was spoofed and then used pretty extensively to send out a lot spam calls. It's not necessarily anything she intentionally did, her phone number of probably just randomly picked as potentially viable target. Our contact info and personal data get publicly revealed all the time now from various online services breaches, that are tied to a very lucrative 'data broker' industry. Listings with our data are a very, very profitable way to make a living.
Now that particular phone number has been added to a lot of the carriers' 'sh*t list', that does leave your Mom in messy situation. She could just wait it out as after a few weeks most spammers move on to new victims as a routine rotation once they've essentially exhausted their current victims. But removing a number from those block listings will take a long time. She could get it removed from the national Do Not Call Registry, and that will help 'clean' her phone number but it's not a comprehensive solution (and don't forget, spammers don't have anything to do with such matters nor bother to follow any established laws or carrier policy rules). It might be best to just contact her carrier, explain the situation, and request a new phone number.

 

[puppykickr]

As far as I know, there are numbers that get on these sort of lists.

Apps like TrueCaller use these user and other provider lists to block calls and/or give a message as you describe.

There are other apps that do the same thing.

You may try contacting whoever is running symuch an app to see if there is a way to get the number off the list.

I dont have any more details, as it was years ago that I had any experience with such an app.

If I remember right, there was an option in the settings to contact the developer(s) or the people with the lists to get a number removed.