I learned that the 'clever' overseas scammers can set up a fake telephone number anywhere in the USA, i.e.; the Texas 409 telephone number (Houston area) indicated on the caller ID.
What got my attention was when these same people started calling me is the fact that I live close to the 409 area code exchange. I answered the phone and when person started their spiel (sp?), I interrupted and said. "Right. Get a grip, fool--this is almost laughable."
Thus far there are six pages of registered complaints about this scam on this web site! Their activities and their pressure will continue unless we ALL collectively report this to a government authority empowered to stop this activity. There are many elderly people who will accept their scam and unwittingly provide banking information which could allow the scammers to deplete folks' life savings.
There are at least two options for those bothered by people originating these offensive calls:
1. Go to www.fcc.com and click on the electronic complaint form, filling out each of the entries (takes about two minutes), identifying the date and time of the unwanted call(s), any identifying information from Caller ID ("Unavailable" is a valid entry), your number where the call was received and your name, street and email addresses. The FCC will immediately respond with an email to you, identifying the file number assigned to your complaint. If everyone filed these complaints to the FCC, that deluge will prompt an investigation and likely a fine on the calling party.
2. I followed a recommendation from a comment listed elsewhere on 800Notes, where that person was extremely frustrated over calls from a number different than 409-574-1214 (as the above folks obviously are) and purchased a DIGITONE Call Blocker from www.digitone.com Three features attracted my interest: a) I now can block up to 80 specific telephone numbers, b) This device has "First Ring Supression." meaning that you will not even hear the first ring!!, c) you can block entire area codes, a feature that can be used to block all 800, 866, 877, etc. numbers or those from specific (not toll-free) numbers. There may be other devices available, too. I saw immediate success with the one I purchased.
Silence can be Golden!!
Even so, I regularly report annoying/illegal/robo calls, etc. to the FCC. Now that I also use the DIGITONE device these annoying calls have been greatly reduced in number.