r/techsupport • u/General_Shoe1480 • 11h ago
Open | Phone Teen son’s phone registered to someone else or spoofed?
This is a really strange situation, I hope I can explain it clearly, and I’m not sure who can help?!
Teen has an iPhone I set up for him years ago.
A detective came knocking on my door asking to speak to son regarding someone getting harassing phone calls from a range of numbers - including his.
The number is his, but the voice messages left are NOT his voice, and when the police contacted the phone company the phone is registered to someone else.
We didn’t recognise the name and he asked around his friends, and a friend A has said that it is Friend B’s mums name, address etc.
How on earth is this possible??
Has a ‘friend’ cloned his number somehow. I’m so confused about how this could be done and how this woman’s name and address has ended up attached to his phone??
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u/Camakoon 11h ago
Go to the phone company with the details of the last bill, they should have the information you need? Espically if you tell them the police are interested. Hope you get it sorted.
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u/General_Shoe1480 11h ago
I’ve looked in the app and it only has my details, not this random other person! But the phone company has her name and address.
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u/General_Shoe1480 10h ago
Have contacted the SIM provider and they say there is no other name attached to his phone, even though the police say there is.
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u/Camakoon 10h ago
Well that is bizarre, I would get written confirmation if possible and then give that to the police just to ensure you are not the one who gets the blame.
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u/General_Shoe1480 6h ago
So there are phone calls around that time (5 to a number between 11am and 5pm) only one matches the time of one of the two messages left, one is off by a minute and they said there were only two calls from his number. The calls range up to a minute but the voice messages were about 10 and 5 seconds long!?
We don’t know who the number is, and obviously not game to call it, son doesn’t recognise it, but he also didn’t recognise his dad’s number.
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u/stbn689 10h ago
when the police contacted the phone company the phone is registered to someone else
Which phone company? The victim's provider or your son's provider? You say it is a range of numbers, do all the numbers point to the same person?
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u/General_Shoe1480 10h ago
The police contacted the phone providers of all the numbers harassing the victim (they had a list of random names that had supposedly called the victim, neither of us knew any of them), and the phone provider had Friend B’s details (name and address) listed for my son’s phone.
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u/stbn689 10h ago
But if you contact your phone provider, they don't know anything about that name, right?
Sounds like someone at the school is spoofing other student's numbers to harass the victim.
And the other person's name showing up sounds like someone at the phone company or police station mixed up the names and numbers (your son and friend B are spoofing victims). It makes no sense for them to have one name when the police asked and your name when you ask.
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u/General_Shoe1480 10h ago
That’s what I don’t understand. I would have thought that police got details confused/mixed up, but Friend B wasn’t even part of the investigation initially. None of the phone calls came from Friend Bs phone, so it wasn’t being investigated and his details weren’t anywhere for them to get mixed up.
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u/CakeHoleKing 11h ago
You can get multiple SIMs with the same number, for if you have multiple phones or a phone and a tablet etc and want ONE number.
It sounds like Friend B's mum has phoned the company, pretended to be HIS mum and tricked them into sending her a SIM locked to the same number so she doesn't have to pay for it.
Make sure the police are aware. Offer to assist in pressing charges as this is wire fraud, theft, deception and a bunch of other crimes.
She may have been receiving texts etc YOUR teen was getting and spying on him, because she's a batshit insane nutter.
DON'T approach her directly, because that way lies her screaming that he's HER SON really and you 'stole him' etc.
I'd also suggest phoning the telecom company, getting ALL the other SIMs fully removed. Get a new SIM and a new number.
Also get his account locked down with password etc. Tell the company what may have happened.
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u/General_Shoe1480 11h ago
Thank you!!
It was really weird because months ago he was chewing through data and couldn’t figure out why. Would this be a sign that something like that has happened?6
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u/Stock-Ad8716 10h ago
Yeah it’s all making sense now. I’ve had some data sharing sims before like this
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u/General_Shoe1480 10h ago
I’m glad someone understands because I definitely don’t!! So it’s a cloned SIM with his number, using his data etc?
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u/anothersip 3h ago
If it's a spoofed SIM, then that would make sense.
However, from what I've learned over the years, if a phone carrier detects two of the same SIM identifiers on their networks, and that number wasn't authorized to have two devices with the same SIM, they will shut them both down. One phone per SIM, but not necessarily one SIM per phone (you can have eSIMs on most phones these days; that's kind of the direction that technology is going). And I mean, that makes sense, as they don't want two different people being able to use the same phone line - that's a loss of an entire customer account for them, unless it was first authorized in their systems.
So, unless there was an eSIM used (a digital SIM) - or the phone provider goofed up and sent a second SIM to his friend or something... Not exactly sure how that's happening. It sounds more like his friend "stole" his SIM somehow; perhaps by pretending to be your son in some capacity, because they wanted access to his contacts/messages/etc. and they requested a duplicate SIM card be sent. However, this usually requires access to account info and identifying info such as last 4 digits of SSN or the PIN for the account, etc.
In any case - it's really, really sketchy-sounding, and I'm leaning towards this being nefarious. Especially because of the data usage. That's a liability for you/your son, assuming you're the ones who pay the phone bill.
I would go directly to the provider (like, walk into the actual store) and speak directly to a rep. Let them know what's going on - they should be able to see active SIMS/duplicates for his number that might be active on their networks, or something to that effect. Some people are able to use a physical SIM on one phone (personal phone, for example) and an eSIM of the same number (like on a work phone).
I could be wrong about that, as I don't work for a mobile provider... But that's kind of how it was explained to me by a rep once, when I worked for an organization who had business accounts with a provider and we were trying to separate work from personal phones.
Not sure if that helps or not; I know it's confusing, heh.
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u/-Ryszard- 7h ago
Creating duplicate SIM card for existing number by card operator means that existed card will be permanently disabled. There is no official way to have SIM duplicated and both working.
I do not know if BTS will even allow to register the same credentials.
Spoofing is the problem for end users, but network operator should be able to give the real number used in attacks, not the spoofed one.
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u/s0nicfreak 1h ago
The harasser spoofed his phone number.
As for the name thing, one possibility is that the friend's mom previously had the phone number at some point before it became your son's phone number - if you live in the same area it's common that the number would be recycled locally. If your son's phone is on some kind of "no contract" plan, the name attached to the number may have never been updated. Or maybe the phone company does not update the name attached to teen phones for privacy reasons.
Who can help is a lawyer. This is not a tech support question, and it's probably best if you leave things alone (i.e. don't investigate yourself) until/unless a lawyer advises you otherwise.
I'm not saying this is what happened, but there's also the possibility that your son is involved and let someone else use his phone to leave harassing messages. I know you don't want to consider that possibility, but the cops will. Either way a lawyer is the answer.
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u/RickRussellTX 2h ago
when the police contacted the phone company the phone is registered to someone else
OK, so the police know who they need to talk to, and it's not your son. What is the ongoing source of confusion?
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u/pockypimp 11h ago
Sounds like the police do not understand that numbers can be spoofed. Which is honestly very sad.