Usually such calls come up on your phone as:
Private Caller
Restricted
Blocked
Unknown
No Caller ID
Private callers can range from someone you may know, a telemarketer or a scam artist.
Some private calls are innocent and can contain important information. For instance, doctors probably do not want their personal phone number shared to avoid patients calls during the off-work hours. Unfortunately, most of these private callers do not have good intentions. Calls from private numbers are common with current or former romantic partners, business competitors, harassers, and phone scammers. Calling someone from a private number is a popular strategy to avoid identification, getting someone on the phone who may not have answered if they recognized the phone number, or contacting someone who has already tried to block the caller.
How to Place a Call from a Private Number
There are a few ways callers can place calls from private numbers. The oldest trick in the book is dialing *67 before a phone number you wish to call. The steps are as follows:
Enter the full phone number you intend to call. ( Make sure to include the area code! )
Tap the Call button. The words “Blocked”, “No Caller ID”, or “Private” or some other indicators will appear on the recipient’s phone instead of your mobile number.
Callers can also block their outbound Caller ID by turning it off on their call “Settings” on their mobile phone. By setting it up this way, their smartphones automatically dial *67 on all outbound phone calls. This way, all calls placed will appear as unavailable.
Using a second phone number app, also known as a private phone number app, is like having a second SIM in your phone. You can make and receive calls and send and receive SMS just like you would with any other phone line. However, instead of having to buy a second SIM and register your name and address, a second phone number app assigns it to you, sometimes anonymously.
When should you use a second phone number app?
Sharing your personal phone number can put sensitive personal information and your accounts on certain applications at risk. Thus, sharing secondary or temporary phone numbers with unknown individuals or new contacts is a good way to protect your privacy. A second phone number app that has a responsible data policy can keep your personal phone number private and contribute to your overall data security.
Phone numbers have become a bit of a catch-22: to be useful, a phone number needs to be public, but phone numbers are also becoming a method of ID verification, which is something you should keep private.
More and more apps are asking for your phone number as a method of account verification. Each time you share your phone number with a stranger, you might be handing an attacker the key to taking over your accounts using a SIM-swapping attack. And this doesn’t account for the fact that if someone has your personal phone number, it only takes a reverse search for them to find your name and address.
However, there are a number of situations where you need to give strangers a phone number so they can contact you. You might be trying to sell something on Craigslist, meeting one of your matches from Tinder, traveling to a new country, or running a small business all on your own. In each of these cases, using a second phone number makes sense.
Since these apps use VoIP, you will need to use your data plan or be connected to a WiFi hotspot for them to work. The most significant difference in the way these apps work is how they connect your second phone number to your smartphone. Some apps handle all communication over the Internet. No information appears on your phone bill about calls to or from the second phone number app.
Lastly, callers can call from private numbers using phone spoofing. Phone spoofing is the practice of calling someone from a fake phone number or a blocked phone number.Using popular services such as SpoofCard, private callers can choose what caller ID appears when they place an outbound call. For example, a caller could spoof their phone number to call from a phone number with a local area code or show their caller ID as “Private”.
Other ways to call from a a private number:
- Use a burner number
For a temporary disposable number, apps such as Burner (available in your browser and as an app for iOS and Android).
- Use a Free Long-Term Private Number
For a more permanent calling solution user prefer Google Voice. You get unlimited calling within the U.S. for free as well as voicemail, call screening and do not disturb, among other features. To receive a call or text, you’ll need a smartphone or computer with Internet access and the Google Voice app (free for iOS and Android). Or, you can choose to forward all of your Google Voice calls and texts to an existing number. Outbound calls made with the Google Voice app will show your Google Voice number, instead of your real number.
- Block Your Outbound Caller ID
If you don’t want to use your disposable phone number minutes, you can block your outbound Caller ID by turning it off in your phone’s call “settings” on your mobile phone, setting it up in your phone management software if you use a digital phone service or dial *67 before the number on a regular landline phone or cell phone (for both you’ll need to use the country code, so it would look like *6712125551212). Your number will appear as unavailable. Here are steps to block your number permanently on Android, iPhones and landline phones. However, you may not want to permanently block your caller ID because some people choose to set up their phones to automatically block i
Similar to a burner phone, a virtual number can be used as a backup phone number. But unlike burners, a virtual number is a phone number you can purchase through an online application or website. Virtual numbers, also known as online numbers, are telephone numbers that are not directly associated with telephone lines. Those numbers are programmed to forward incoming calls to one of the pre-set telephone numbers you have chosen to use. The difference between virtual and burner phones is that with virtual numbers, you can make international calls to whichever country you chose to purchase. Nevertheless, the main purpose of purchasing a virtual number is to receive international calls without incurring high rates.
All second phone number apps use Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology. However, unlike other VoIP services, like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or Skype, a second phone number company has a block of phone numbers that it can assign to its users. These phone numbers are usually from the USA, but some second phone number apps provide phone numbers from different countries as well. Once you sign up, the app will assign you one of its phone numbers. You can use that number like you would any other phone number: to make or receive phone calls and to send or receive SMS. When you call someone or send them an SMS, your second phone number appears on their phone. They have no idea that you’re using a second phone number app.
Other apps operate more like a standard call-forwarding service. When you make a phone call, you use your standard phone plan to call a Burner server, which then calls your intended recipient. When someone calls you, the Burner server will send a notification to your phone that you are receiving a call, and then you will connect to the call via the Burner server. These calls do count against your phone plan, and while no information about whom you have called or who has called you will appear on your phone bill, it will show all the phone calls you have made to or received from Burner.
How to choose second phone number apps to make calls from a private number:
Each app has its own pricing system, and while all of these apps offer more or less the same service, some provide more phone numbers in foreign countries while others make it easier for you to have a third (or a fourth, or even a fifth) phone number for your phone. Which one is right for you depends on how much you are willing to pay and what you are using your second phone number for.
The first thing to consider when trying to select a second phone number app is what information they collect. The apps that act more as a call-forwarding service need your personal phone number to work, which means that services like Burner and Google Voice have records of both ends of all your phone conversations.
Services like Phoner that handle your calls completely over the Internet do not require your personal phone number, giving you an extra layer of privacy.
The invention of mobile phones has helped us in so many ways. Overall, mobile phones have made our lives easier. However, sometimes we worry about our privacy and safety. Keeping our phone numbers private is a top priority and remains a serious concern in our lives. To ensure safety, people are purchasing a burner phone or virtual number to enjoy the highest possible level of security.
You should also read each service’s Privacy Policy before you select a second phone number app. Because all of these services route your phone calls and SMS through their servers, they have access to a large amount of your communication data. It is vital that you see exactly what data they collect, keep, and process, as well as what you can do to erase those data.
In the past, options for number masking were limited. The only real way to hide your phone number was to get an actual second phone. These are known as “burner phones” because you could “burn” them (ditch them entirely) after making your call. The problem with physical burner phones is inconvenience and expense. But nobody wants to have to carry around two phones. And we don’t know anybody who wants to buy and then throw out a smartphone every few days. Imagine the cost!
Even if you’re in the habit of handing out your number easily, here are some reasons you may want to start calling from a private number:
Online dating
Online shopping
Freelance jobs
You may not even think of your phone number as personal information. After all, you’re asked to provide it every day for various reasons… Every website you visit, social media you sign up with, physical shops that you pay in. In all these situations, organisations all desperately want a way to keep in contact with you…and now more than ever, an email address just won´t do it.
To sum up there are many benefits of getting an additional number on your phone in order to keep your personal number private:
No need to purchase additional hardware. You can use your existing phone.
Add features like call forwarding, SMS notifications, and email notifications.
Customize your settings and enjoy greater conferencing capabilities.
Enjoy low-cost calls.
Assign a virtual phone number to a cell phone and computer, so you won’t be unavailable.
Enjoy simplified remote working and geographic flexibility.
Control where the calls are sent.
Enjoy ring groups. When you dial the virtual phone number of a ring group, all the group members are called in a preset order. This can be helpful for after-hours support groups and teams located in different parts of the world.
Direct calls and enable recorded greetings and information that might be useful for you.
Leave a message or get some information after connecting to your virtual number.
Attach audio files to emails.
Avoid busy signals; the forwarded call can easily reach a phone number even if already being used.
There are virtual numbers that can be programmed with time settings to serve as per-hour timings.
Virtual numbers eliminate barriers associated with time zones, thus serving as effective mechanisms for making and receiving calls.
DID numbers provide excellent advantages for remote working and businesses in general. They’re cost-effective, geographically flexible, enable external device forwarding and more. Using a virtual phone number, you can enjoy benefits that can’t be found with landline phone systems.
