·:[ Jason On A Shtick ]:·
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Once in a blue moon, we get a prank call. I don’t know why very drunk people or bored teenagers single us out, but it happens. Over the years, I’ve made it my mission to “educate” prank callers in the art of prank calling, as well as give them a little insight into how the telephone system works (if you think blocking your number is going to stop me from finding you, think again and go do some reading).

One afternoon last week, “Cindy from the health department” called Jenny to let her know that her “pregnancy test came back positive”. Jenny laughed this one off and just hung up. But that just wasn’t enough for these little dolls. They called back again the next day and I answered the phone.

<me> Hello?
<cindy> (voice that sounds like a ten year old girl) Hello, is Jenny there?
<me> (already suspicious because caller ID shows “unknown name, unknown number”) Nope, she’s not – can I take a message?
<cindy> (muffled sounds of flipping phone book pages, along with a whisper from another girl’s voice) Uh, is this Jason?
<me> Why, yes it is!
<cindy> Well, this is Cindy from the health department, and we’ve got Jenny’s pregnancy test back…
<me> Yes, well, you do realize that blocking your number isn’t going to help, don’t you?
*click*

At this point, depending on your phone carrier and a couple of other things such as whether this is a private number or if they just blocked their caller ID, you might be able to simply *69 this caller to learn their number and call them back. In my case, I have a VoIP phone service and I can log in to my account on their web site and see a detailed list of every call, including the numbers that called me. I do so, and call this number back about two minutes later:

<cindy> (sounds a little scared as if maybe she recognizes my number calling her back) Hello?
<me> Hi, someone just called here from the health department, but I didn’t find out about Jenny’s test results! Told you I could find you!
<cindy> (muffled words that sound like “oh sh*t”)
*click*

Ah, sometimes it just feels good to give as much as you receive!

So the first question is why in the heck doesn’t every phone with caller ID give you an option to block calls without caller ID? I’d think you could sell the daylights out of these, but I guess the money grubbing phone companies love charing you a dollar a month for this service. Even in my case with the fancy VoIP, I can enter specific numbers to block, but why not give me an option to block anything marked private, no number, no name, etc? Maybe because they know I just love to prank the pranksters.

The second question is why can’t prank callers at least put a little effort into it? Go use a public phone or get a spoof card, will ya? Come on, people! Don’t be like everyone else and half a$$ your work, put your back into it!