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Comment by mwint | Hacker News Reader

But then my calls will come from the random area code too. It’d be neat if you could do a dual phone number, where your CID on outbound calls shows as your local area code, but you give out the foreign area code for inbound calls.

But then you mess up callbacks.

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Your missing the point. Spammers call you from a spoofed number so that you think its someone near you based on the area code. I lived just a town over an invisible line in 2009, and ordered a new phone, and got an area code that the only other person I know that has a number in that area code is my wife. (920)

the ONLY calls that call me from that area code are spammers. if I get calls from any other area code, only 20% or so are spammers. Others are sales/marketing for IT companies, etc, and calls from one of the 2 area codes that cover my area where I actually live are usually all local businesses, etc. If I had to guess, I would say 85-90% of the 'spam callers' call and spoof the 920 area code when they dial me. that drastically cuts down on my automated messages about a car warranty that is about to expire.

You misunderstand slightly. All the calls from the area code matching your phone number are more likely to be spam (spammers matching you to appear legit). So unless you call people in that particular area, you won't be matching their area code, so you won't look like a spammer. And unless you happen to know a lot of people in that area, you won't get calls from that area that appear to be spam.

> So unless you call people in that particular area, you won't be matching their area code, so you won't look like a spammer

You're misunderstanding them too, I suspect. One could equally assume that a call coming from an area code they've never been to, 5 states away is spam - so this trick works if you do not make a lot of calls.

> One could equally assume that a call coming from an area code they've never been to, 5 states away is spam

Not equally. I have an area code from the opposite coast. If I get a call from that area code, it is 100% spam. Spammers just love outing themselves by spoofing the same area code of the person they are calling.

A call from any other area code is only 30% chance of being spam.

> But then my calls will come from the random area code too

Nobody will care. Everybody's cell number is just a record of where they lived when they got their first phone; people you call will have you in their contact list most likely.

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