Why Trace A Phone Number?
Receiving phone calls from unknown numbers can make you feel curious, irritated or even worried. Although Caller-ID technology can show you a phone number, if it’s not listed in your contacts, you may find yourself staring down a nagging mystery, with no means to solve it. At Cybertrace, we have developed a suite of tips, techniques and tools to help you get to the bottom of your mystery callers. But first, let’s explore some of the most common reasons why it might be useful to trace phone numbers.
Tracing Personal Calls
You may be hoping that the call from an unknown number is about a job you applied for, making you an offer. Or perhaps you’re wondering if it’s a long lost friend that is trying to reach out. Some people might feel triggered when they see missed calls from unknown numbers. Perhaps you have estranged family members or ex-spouses that you wish to maintain no contact with.
Or perhaps you’ve been stalked and don’t know if you’re jumping at shadows or are actually at risk of threat from criminally obsessed individuals. Being able to trace these phone numbers could offer you some peace of mind and/or the evidence that you need to put protection orders in place.
Tracing Scam Calls
Being able to trace phone numbers can also come in handy when dealing with potential scam phone calls. Have you ever received recorded notifications that say you owe the government money, or that there is something wrong with your computer?
You are encouraged to stay on the line while the caller provides ‘guidance’ on how to ‘remedy’ the fake problem they have presented you with. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to trace these calls before deciding whether or not to engage with them?
Tracing Sales Calls
Another scenario where tracing phone numbers might be helpful, is when you are being inundated constantly with sales calls. Perhaps you unwittingly signed up for a service, leading to your phone number being sold on and now you are being targeted regularly to buy timeshare in a property in the Caribbean or switch energy providers.
Often with these calls, it is very challenging to know if the people canvassing you are scammers or not, or if they are legitimately trying to sell you something that might be interesting. Once again, the ability to trace these calls could save you from a lot of distress and uncertainty.
Tracing Texts Messages
It’s only phone calls that many people wish they could trace. However, scams via the phone will often come through as text messages. These messages can contain malicious links that can steal your personal identifying information, including passwords to banking apps and superannuation accounts.
Cybertrace strongly advises you never to click these links. All of them should be regarded with utmost caution. For added peace of mind, many people would find it useful to be able to trace these calls and know where the phone numbers originate. Discovering that they are a scam means that you can report them, and hopefully help stop them from operating.
All in all, it can be confusing and sometimes stressful trying to work out who has phoned you legitimately and who has other, more nefarious motives. Cybertrace’s tricks, tools and techniques for tracing phone numbers offer you the invaluable opportunity to resolve some of this confusion.
Before we get into the mechanics of tracing a phone number, it is important to note that at Cybertrace we investigate complicated scams all the time. Tracing phone numbers is often a key component of cracking cases open. However, if you have lost a significant sum of money, it’s more than likely you will need a more detailed and rigorous investigation, and we recommend that you contact Cybertrace for assistance.
It’s also important to remember that real life is nothing like the movies. Where on the silver screen the FBI can trace calls in a matter of minutes, real investigations take time and resources. In the meantime, however, you have the potential to crack your own case by tracing the mystery phone number that has called you.
Things You Can Do Yourself To Trace Phone Numbers
You can always approach an expert company like Cybertrace to help you resolve phone scams. With our suite of databases and tools, we can often discover many details linked to a phone number. But there are also preliminary things you can do at home.
Open Source Boolean Searches
In attempts to search phone numbers, many people input them into a Google search. But few people know there are tricks you can use to optimise your searching. These are known as Boolean operators. This can involve placing quotation marks around your search terms (the phone number), asterisks beside them, or using a range of other commands that make your online searching more effective. Remember to also search for the number with and without the country code.
Searching Social Media
Some social media platforms can be searched for phone numbers. Whether their user has been engaging on Facebook marketplace or promoting events on X, they may have left a trail that leads you to the person behind the unknown number.
Cybertrace’s Free Tool
At Cybertrace, we offer a quick and easy free tool that gives users the ability to determine what country the phone number in question originates in, what mobile network it is linked to and whether it is a mobile phone number or a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).
Cybertrace’s Advanced Deep Scan
Cybertrace offers you another tool to find out more about the phone numbers that have been calling you. Our Deep Scan tool provides the public (globally, not just in Australia), with a quick and easy way to learn more about unknown numbers. Using Cybertrace’s custom tool will bring you fast, helpful results. Here is the kind of data the Deep Scan tool can identify:
- Names, Usernames and Caller IDs: The results can reveal the name that is registered to the phone number across multiple platforms. Added to this, the tool can also identify usernames from social media accounts or other platforms that the phone number is linked to.
- Platforms, Profiles and Websites: Use the tool to identify any websites and social media platforms the number may be linked to.
- Profile Pictures: Our tool also holds the potential to reveal profile pictures on social media accounts that are in turn linked to the phone number in question.
- Connected Contact Details: Our advanced phone number lookup tool can also reveal contact details that are connected to the phone number. Sometimes only a partially revealed email address is obtained, however, this can still offer some important information about who is behind the phone number in question, potentially helping you to solve the case.
- Instant Results and Report: When you order Cybertrace’s Advanced Deep Scan from our website, it only takes a few moments for our findings to appear on your screen. Our technology will scan and scrape data across multiple platforms, the results of which are then compiled into a convenient downloadable and easy-to-read report.
Serious Scam Phone Numbers
Whilst our investigative tools and capabilities can identify important intelligence and evidence when tracing phone numbers, serious scammers commonly register Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) numbers. These telephone numbers can be easily registered and use the internet instead of traditional telecommunication methods.
The offenders can select numbers that reflect a certain country or location, but can in fact be located anywhere in the world. For example, many investment fraud operations purport to be located in the United Kingdom, and register VoIP numbers starting in +44 to make it look like they really are in the UK. Just because a number reflects a location, it doesn’t mean that is really where the caller is located!
When these types of numbers are used, they’re unlikely to be linked to the scammer’s real caller ID or social media accounts. For serious fraud cases, where the offenders are experts in deceiving victims and defrauding funds, Cybertrace scam investigators turn to other aspects to identify the offenders, such as forensic website investigations and asset/cryptocurrency tracing.
Conclusion
The ability to trace phone numbers can save you a lot of stress and confusion. But it’s important to remember that if you’ve lost a significant sum of money you may need an investigation with a licensed and certified company like Cybertace. In our larger, more serious cases, identifying phone numbers often comprises just one aspect of investigating multi-nodal scams. However, whenever we can, we like to offer you some useful phone tracing tips, tricks and tools, constructed through our combined decades of experience, to help you identify your mystery caller.
