Why does my number show up as spam or the wrong caller ID when I call someone?

Contents

• Overview
• How do I report my number as not spam?
• How do I change my caller ID?

Overview

No one likes spam calls, though in this digital era we are endlessly bombarded by them. In an effort to help consumers, phone providers have taken measures to proactively adjust the caller ID for numbers they've determined are "spam" or "spam likely" and, in some cases, even a real organization name or individual name.

Every phone carrier (i.e. AT&T, Verizon, etc.) has different rules or algorithms to determine what is displayed for a phone number's caller ID. This means that your phone number or your organization's phone number may mistakenly be marked as spam, or labeled with the wrong caller ID. 

How do I report my number as not spam?

Even though this is outside of the CTD Help Desk's control, if your calls are being labeled as spam or are being blocked, there are several steps you can take. 

Register your organization's phone number with call analytics providers

Register and verify your organization's phone number(s) with the following analytics providers. This will help validate that you are a legitimate organization to some of the major wireless carriers in the U.S.  

• Call Transparency
• Free Caller Registry | Home 

Report the incorrect spam label to the phone carriers

When submitting a report, it can be useful to include the following information:

• The phone number that called
• The phone number that received the call
• Name associated with the caller
• Details about why the caller's number is not spam

Here is a list of links to the phone carrier reporting pages:

• AT&T
• Verizon
• T-Mobile
• Sprint

Additional companies to submit reports to via email:

• NoMoRobo
• YouMail

How do I change my caller ID?

To reiterate, how your phone number's caller ID is displayed is completely up to the phone company that receives your call. This includes if they want to block it as spam based on whatever internal criteria they have established. 

However, CTD can typically adjust the caller ID for your organization's phone company. This means that if you call someone whose phone number is also managed by your organization's phone company, then we can control how your caller ID shows up. But again, this also means we can't change how your caller ID shows up for phone numbers that are managed by a different phone company. How a different phone company interprets caller ID is beyond anyone's control except for the phone carrier your call lands with.