Every once in a long while, a customer will contact us and tell us that their phone system is going haywire.  They say that a particular person or group of people keep getting calls from their company, often in the middle of the night, on a regular basis.  As they are not physically making these calls, they ask us to investigate what’s going on.

What we invariably find in these situations is that something known as Caller ID spoofing is taking place.  This is the practice of calling someone and having a number other than your own phone number show up on the other person’s phone display.  This is similar to what spammers do with email, where the person who sent the email appears to be someone other than who it actually is.  There are a number of reasons that Caller ID spoofing is used, such as for pranks, or with the intent to harm or defraud someone.

But not all Caller ID spoofing is malicious in nature.  Sometimes, companies do it unintentionally by accidentally transposing numbers in their phone system programming.  There are also legitimate reasons to do it on purpose, for example, when a commercial service is making a call on behalf of their client, or when used by law enforcement in the course of an investigation.  ESI (the manufacturer of the phone systems we sell), even has a feature on its systems equipped with ISDN PRI lines called Intelligent Call Forwarding™, which works when a caller calls into the business and is transferred out to another phone number.  With Intelligent Call Forwarding™, the recipient of the forwarded call sees the Caller ID of the original caller.  This is very useful, and a great selling feature.

While Caller ID Spoofing has been around for awhile and some have been inappropriately using it for many years, it is taking time for the laws to catch up.  There are a couple of bills in Congress that would amend the Communications Act of 1934 to prohibit manipulation of caller identification information.  On June 27, 2007, the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation approved and submitted to the Senate calendar S.704, a bill that would make it a crime to spoof caller ID.  The “Truth in Caller ID Act of 2007″ would outlaw causing “any caller identification service to transmit misleading or inaccurate caller identification information” via “any telecommunications service or IP-enabled voice service”. Law enforcement is exempted from the rule.  On June 12, 2007, a similar bill (H.R. 251) passed in the House of Representatives by a voice vote.  It now awaits passage in the Senate, after which it would need to be signed into law by the President to take effect.

You can protect yourself from Caller ID Spoofing in general by making sure you don’t reveal passwords, account information or other sensitive information over the telephone to someone who has initiated the call to you, unless you know the person and have already verified their identity and credentials.  Just because their Caller ID shows that they are from your bank doesn’t make it so.  Unfortunately, if someone else is spoofing your number, you may have a more difficult time getting the behavior to stop.  This is because the phone call whose caller ID is being spoofed could originate from lines anywhere in the U.S. or Canada, and unless the person on the other end of the line is willing to tell you who they really are, your only recourse would be to go through a legal process of getting the call traced, or to have the authorities help you.  Because there is no national Caller ID spoofing law yet, and local laws on Caller ID spoofing don’t exist in many places, your best bet in getting the authorities to help you would be to convince them that other laws are being broken (such as identity theft or fraud).

When looking for a new phone system, one should realize that not all phone systems are created equal.  While, on the surface, it may appear that most phone systems have the same basic level of functionality, this could not be further from the truth.  All phone systems are based on unique technology and designs, and, when you take a close look, you will find vast differences in one manufacturer’s system to the next.  The three broad questions to ask yourself when evaluating a phone system should be:

• Does it have all the functionality, robustness, and capacity my business needs?
• Are the phones intuitive and easy to use?
• Can I see a live demonstration of the phones and their operation?

Here are some questions that you’ll want to make sure to ask as part of your checklist:

• Caller ID. Does the system support Caller ID on all lines?  Does this capability cost extra?  Do all phones have displays so that I can take advantage of Caller ID?  Can I add a caller’s Caller ID to my personal electronic “Rolodex” with one button press?  Will Caller ID be stored with voicemail messages?  Can Caller ID of the original caller be relayed on calls forwarded outside the office?  Can I review a list from my phone of recent calls’ Caller ID, along with whether I answered the call or it was missed, went to voicemail, or was redirected?
• Voicemail. Does the system support voicemail?  How many ports (simultaneous connections) does it have, and will this be sufficient for my needs?  Is it built-in, or added on?  Will my phone display show me how many messages I have? As I am listening to a message, will a counter on my display count down the time remaining in the message?  Can I transfer callers to voicemail in 2 button presses or fewer?  Can I easily send a message to multiple mailboxes on the fly without having to go through a menu?  When listening to a voicemail message, can I return the call by pressing one button?  Can I allow callers who reach my voicemail to be forwarded to me off site?  Can I be notified of new messages by pager or phone?  Can employees without an office phone still have voicemail?  Am I charged based on the number of mailboxes I use, or are as many as I need included?  Is Unified Messaging available?  Can I save a copy of a message to my computer for archiving or email?
• Auto-Attendant. Does the system have an automated attendant with the ability to provide multiple options to the caller?  Can the menus be several deep if needed?  Can callers be transferred to extensions, mailboxes, departments, overhead paging, remote IP extensions, off-site branches via VoIP, or to outside phone numbers?  Can I have multiple answer modes (such as day, lunch, night, and holiday), and can I either activate them on demand or have them follow a schedule?
• Call Recording. Does the phone have a dedicated Record button for one-touch recording?  Will the recording begin without a delay?  Can I record a call with or without notifying the caller?  Can I record a live conversation directly to my own or another user’s mailbox? Can I record a conversation to multiple users’ mailboxes, on the fly?  Can I save a copy of the recording to my computer for archiving or email?
• Automatic Call Distribution. Does the system support Automatic Call Distribution (ability to let caller stay on hold for the “next available agent”)?  Can calls be escalated if the caller has been in the queue for a certain amount of time, or if the number of callers in queue reaches a certain threshold?  Can the type of routing be flexible (i.e. longest idle extension, uniform distribution, or in-order distribution)? As an administrator, can I silently monitor calls for quality assurance purposes?  When monitoring calls for quality assurance, can I record the conversation for later review and employee feedback?  Is computer software available to facilitate communication between agents and administrators, and to allow administrators to keep track of activity (both real-time and historical)?  Can off-site users (i.e. telecommuters) be part of an ACD group?  Can I monitor them as well?
• Music On Hold. Is music on hold capability built-in to the system, or does it require additional equipment?  Are there pre-recorded tracks so I can hit the ground running?  Can I load custom tracks that will loop automatically?  Can callers dial an extension from hold?
• Built-in Help. Does the system have built-in help?  Does it have a built-in verbal tutorial on phone and voicemail features?  Is there a dedicated Help button?
• Conferencing. Does the system have built-in conferencing?  How many parties can be conferenced together simultaneously?  Is it easy to initiate a conference and add parties?
• Voice over IP (VoIP): Does the system support both local (on-premises) and remote IP (off-premises) extensions?  Do IP phones have all the same features and functionality as non-IP phones?  Can remote IP phones be moved from location to location geographically and plugged into practically any broadband connection, or does this require extensive configuration?  Do the remote phones use high-quality compression for the best voice quality?  Are SIP phones supported?  Are “soft” PC phones supported (local or remote)?  Can multiple, geographically distant sites be connected together?  Does this linking capability include robust features such as one-touch intercom/transfer, auto attendant or DID routing between sites, or ability to see when users at other sites are using their phone, in Do Not Disturb, or available?
• Presence Management. Does the system support door phones/security access readers using RFID technology (with security cards or keychain fobs)?  Can designated phone users unlock doors for guest entry from their desk?  Can I tell at a glance, from my phone, whether or not someone is in the building?  Can building or secure area access be limited based on a schedule?  Can a security card or fob be disabled quickly if it is lost or stolen, so that locks do not need to be changed?  Can the security readers also be used as time clocks, and can this data be reported on or imported into payroll software?
• Wireless Integration. Does the system support digital cordless phones in addition to standard analog cordless phones?  Do the digital cordless phones support a wide range of features, such as line and station appearances, transfer, conference, voicemail access, call record, do not disturb, overhead page, and more?  Can these features be accessed with one button rather than memorizing a code or button sequence?  Can users utilize a wireless Bluetooth headset of their choice with their office desk phone?  Can I automatically redirect cell phone calls to my office phone while I am in the office, without having to remember to forward and un-forward my cell phone (if that’s even an option)?  Can I run a cell line through my phone system as a backup line in case my regular lines ever go down?
• Expansion. Can the system be expanded easily without having to replace the entire phone system?  Can new capabilities be added to the system via a software upgrade?  Can software upgrades be done remotely?
• Support. Does the company I purchase the phone system from have extensive experience with this brand?  Do they have multiple technicians that are fully certified on the equipment?  How long have they been in business?  Are they a local company?  Do they have the ability to diagnose most issues quickly, without dispatching a technician?  If a technician needs to be dispatched, and it’s an emergency, will I get a response within a few hours or less?