Three quick ways to find out who called me

For many of us, our phones are more than just a way to make and receive calls. It’s no exaggeration to say that our entire lives can be found in these essential devices. That’s one reason to take spam calls so seriously. But how we respond to them differs. When an unknown caller gets through it can feel like an invasion of privacy for some of us, or merely an unwanted distraction for others. Either way, we all want to answer the question, “who called me?” quickly and easily. Here are three ways to do that:

1.      Check your voicemail and contacts

This might seem obvious, but if an unknown number shows up it might be a call from someone you would like to hear from. This often happens with friends and family, who might have changed their numbers recently and not mentioned it. One study found that nearly half of us change our phone numbers every two years or so, and about a third of us change them every year. When you think about how many contacts you have stored in your phone, these frequent number changes make it very likely that the caller is already within your personal and social network.

Another area of unknown calls is from businesses you might know. Many companies use sophisticated technology which creates unique numbers so they can track their marketing efforts. While these phone numbers may help companies know where their money is going, they can create confusion because the custom number is different to the one you expect.

Fortunately, most of us have access to voicemail. Using your phone to make calls might seem old-fashioned, but provided your inbox is not full, genuine callers can use it to leave a message to identify themselves. You can then update your contacts with the new number to recognise them in future.

Pro tip: make things even easier for yourself by encouraging people to leave voicemails. Create a custom voicemail message, saying you screen calls to avoid spam, and that you will call back, so they know why.

2.      Try an online site

If you don’t recognise the caller, and they fail to leave a voicemail message, another option is to use an online site to search for their number. The beauty of these reverse phone number lookup websites is that a lot of the information they contain is crowdsourced by people who have received scam or spam calls. Often, they leave comments about the caller and whether they can be trusted. Because this information is constantly updated you can use it to quickly identify fake calls.

3.      Call them back

This last option is obvious, but it comes with a health warning: call with caution! Calling unknown numbers is risky because they can connect you with scammers, who try to convince you to part with money, personal information, or other valuable details. Other numbers can result in premium charges, including international numbers which are often excluded from your phone service plan. Our advice: don’t call if in doubt.