How to prevent harassment from unknown callers

All over the world, telephone scams are causing trouble. For both individuals and businesses, a phone scam can lead to a loss of money, time, prestige or even valuable personal information. However, amidst all of those scams, people forget harassment over the phone, which also happens frequently. Telephone harassment is considered a violation of one's privacy or even a criminal offence punishable by fine or jail time. You do not have to put up with it. Here are a few ways to prevent it. For the curious reader who has not run into this problem yet, these tips might come handy later on.

Find out who is harassing you (if possible)

Well, this might seem like a no-brainer, but bear with us. The key to removing the power from the hands of the individuals or organisation which is harassing you is knowing their identity. Maybe it is your angry ex-boyfriend/girlfriend. Perhaps it is a raging employee which you recently fired. Here, such tools as an online reverse phone lookup service come into play.

By using an online tool for tracking a phone number, you can find out a lot about the caller. Where they come from, which phone operator’s services are they using etc.

The best part about phone number lookup online – it’s free.

Now, next up is a fork in the road. It would be best if you decided in which direction are you going to go.

Block the caller

Every smartphone these days has a simple feature which allows you to block a specific phone number. Both Android and iPhone devices are capable of that. Blocking a phone number will automatically decline all calls from that particular caller. They will be unable to reach you.

Nevertheless, persistent harassers could hide behind huge call centres or have more than one number. In such cases, harassing calls could reoccur. Blocking will do little good because these calls are just going to come back.

Change your number, switch service providers

This would be option A. Changing your number and switching service providers is quite simple but does bring some difficulties. You would have to introduce tons of people to your new phone number and replace any critical business-related information. This could take time and exposing your new number on social media will not deter a persistent scammer or harasser.

However, it could give you some additional information. Such would be whether the person is close to you or is in your close circle. You could temporarily disable your old number, then activate a burner phone for a week or two and test out various circles of people. Act like a detective and do not be afraid.

Contact law enforcement or seek legal assistance

In this situation, acting as your own detective is effective and gives much experience. However, professionals and specially trained individuals have the proper gear, methods and enough manpower to track such people down. You do not have sufficient resources and the know-how to find out more about the harasser all by yourself.

Even though reverse phone tracking online, star 69 or other simple tricks could put you on the right path; success is not guaranteed.

Contacting law enforcement could give you a definite edge. They will likely identify and stop the person behind the harassment quite quickly.

Additionally, if reverse phone search online provides information about the carrier service for the harassing number – contact the carrier. Inform them about your situation and ask how they could help you. All in all – police and legal assistance is more effective, but it is worth trying nevertheless.

Legal assistance is just as effective as contacting law enforcement. However, whereas police or respective law enforcement agencies work according to rules and follow general practices, legal aid has your best personal interests in mind. Lawyers and other law experts could give great personal advice to keep you safe and calm. In a time when you are personally harassed, it is best not to let yourselves be provoked.