Someone called someone else with my phone number

Someone placed a call to 'the guy', and spoofed the caller id to make it look like the call came from your phone number. Caller-id spoofing is not uncommon, and there are even VOIP services that actually offer this as a 'feature'. 'Junk callers' often spoof the caller id to make the call look like a 'local call', so as to make the recipient more likely to answer the call. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caller_ID_spoofing for more info.


Thinking in other way that this is kind of Social Engineering attempt.

When he(stranger) sent you the screen shot of his phone call list which might be a tailored (using photoshop tools) one i guess. But what you sent to him(stranger) is real screenshot of your call list. In my opinion we don't need to send our call list to stranger. In fact its better call your Telecom provider and cross check.

  1. What are the risks?

Ans: Risk is social engineering attempt to steal some info\activity about you.

  1. Should anything be done about this?

Ans: Call Telecom provider for cross check about this unusual activity.


Should anything be done about this?

I think you should do something about it. In particular, I think you should report it to a regulatory agency so they have the data point.

If you are in the US, then you can file a complaint with the FCC. The FCC handles spoofing where someone pretends to be you. Head over to FCC Consumer Complaints, Form 39744. It is a web form. For Phone Issue select Unwanted Calls. Then, for Unwanted Calls Sub Issue select My Own Number Is Being Spoofed.

You might be able to file a complaint with the FTC, too. The FTC complaint form is at Do Not Call Complaints. But the FTC usually handles unwanted incoming calls, and not the additional games like having your own number spoofed.

Carriers like Verizon are mostly (completely?) useless. I once received 7 calls in 90 minutes from a miscreant pretending to be me. The miscreant used my name and landline number to call on the landline. I reported all of the calls to Verizon's Unlawful Call Center in realtime and initiated a call trace for each call. Verizon did not block any of the spoofed calls even after they were reported to the company.


What are the risks?

Speaking in the context of the US... Law enforcement rarely investigates these matters unless there is a threat of physical or bodily harm, so you probably don't have to worry about law enforcement.

You might find your phone number is blocked by software like NoMoRobo. That's because called parties may report a call from your name and number to the FTC. The FTC maintains the Do Not Call (DNC) Registry and publishes the database at Do Not Call (DNC) Reported Calls Data Files. Services like NoMoRobo use the FTC data files.

I report every call like that to the FTC so the FTC has a data point. Usable data is paramount for policy and enforcement decisions. If the FCC and FTC don't have the data, then there is nothing to act upon.

Reporting to the FTC cuts both ways. I am also in the FTC database from miscreant spoofing my name and number.


If interested, it is not just you being spoofed. Apple is currently taking a beating in the Northeast United States.

I wrote software to log all incoming calls (in addition to killing calls, initiating call traces and filing FCC and FTC complaints). It has been running for about 8 months. Here is Apple's results:

sqlite> SELECT name,number,date FROM call_log WHERE name = 'APPLE INC' ;
APPLE INC|9492551500|2019-07-08 12:05:00
APPLE INC|2122263126|2019-08-08 17:59:00
APPLE INC|2122263126|2019-08-08 18:40:00
APPLE INC|2122263126|2019-08-08 19:12:00
APPLE INC|6784020725|2019-08-09 12:36:00
APPLE INC|6784020725|2019-08-09 13:09:00
APPLE INC|7049720980|2019-08-09 13:52:00
APPLE INC|7049720980|2019-08-09 14:32:00
APPLE INC|7049720980|2019-08-09 15:14:00
APPLE INC|6468023800|2019-08-09 15:51:00
APPLE INC|5126340520|2019-08-30 18:29:00
APPLE INC|5126340520|2019-08-30 19:12:00
APPLE INC|3236179800|2019-09-12 21:21:00
APPLE INC|8184779010|2019-10-23 19:47:00
APPLE INC|8184779010|2019-10-24 11:41:00

Those are real Apple Store phone numbers. It got so bad for Apple when you call one of their stores the welcome message alerts you of the spoofing.

Extrapolating my results for Apple, imagine 15 calls in 4 months x 182 million land lines + 240 million cell phones. That's nearly 6,330,000,000 (6.3 billion) spoofed calls claiming to be from Apple in four months.