I was given permission today from a client to describe details about their reverse phone lookup here. The correspondence between myself and this client really inspired me to share the rewarding aspects of doing a reverse search.
A woman needed a reverse lookup done on her father's ex-girlfriend. The ex-girlfriend was in some way able to access the client's father's savings accounts, and over the last month and a half had withdrawn the maximum daily limit each day with an ATM card.
Last Saturday the man awoke to find his girlfriend had left him, left town, and left his savings account $6,000 dollars lighter.
On Monday night, the girlfriend called to apologize for her theft. Thankfully she didn't block her number before calling, and through reverse lookup, we were able to provide the customer's name and address of the number she called from. As it turns out, she had travelled several hundred miles across the state to stay with a man she had supposedly broken up with years before.
Last I heard, the police were taking her location seriously and were on their way to put her into custody.
A warm thank you to my client for allowing me to share this story on Internet! I certainly don't wish circumstances such as this upon anyone, but please remember to bookmark Phone Search Central just in case.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
I Don't Offer Legal Advice
The previous post about Customer Network Proprietary Information (CNPI) is intended solely for informational purposes. I am certainly not qualified to offer legal advice to anyone.
If you are concerned about the law in your jurisdiction, which certainly can differ from federal laws, you are urged to consult an attorney to evalulate the legalities in your area.
So as a disclaimer to the previous post: Phone Search Central provides telephone name and address information while never violating current Federal Law.
If you are concerned about the law in your jurisdiction, which certainly can differ from federal laws, you are urged to consult an attorney to evalulate the legalities in your area.
So as a disclaimer to the previous post: Phone Search Central provides telephone name and address information while never violating current Federal Law.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Customer Proprietary Network Information: What it Means to You
My website has offered investigative tools for years to people in need of such information. The searches and lookups we offer have always been legal, however.
The United States Congress has enacted laws that affect other sites borderline-illegal offerings in recent years, thus making them fully illegal. The first law to come into play was the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999, which prohibited pretexting in efforts to obtain another person's financial information.
Last year, another law was passed that was designed to stop anyone but you from looking at your telephone bill. It was a very popular subject in the news for quite some time: anyone with a small amount of money could purchase anyone else's calling details. The connotations of this ability of anyone to obtain another person's calling records, or "tolls" as they are often called, sparked outrage amongst privacy minded individuals.
The law to protect your calling records is called "Telephone Records and Privacy Protection Act of 2006." The full text of either of the laws I've mentioned can be found at thomas.loc.gov.
Specifically, in the latter law, you can no longer obtain, buy or sell the following information about another person's telephone account:
Information about the "quantity, technical configuration, type, destination, location, or amount of use of a service offered by a covered entity, subscribed to by any customer of that covered entity, and kept by or on behalf of that covered entity solely by virtue of the relationship between that covered entity and the customer;"
This means it is ILLEGAL to obtain, buy or sell information about how often someone makes a phone call, how their account is set up, what kind of plan they have, what numbers they call, where the calls originate from (yes, some sites were selling GPS information obtained from phones!) or how often they use their phone.
Other stipulations of this bill are that no one can obtain information that "is made available to a covered entity by a customer solely by virtue of the relationship between that covered entity and the customer" -- in other words, information that only a customer and the telephone company should know. This can include any number of things, for example: did the customer need to pay a deposit to get telephone service established? Is the customer entitled to any discounts through his or her work or school?
And finally, information that "is contained in any bill, itemization, or account statement provided to a customer by or on behalf of a covered entity solely by virtue of the relationship between that covered entity and the customer." Again, this part of the law is designed to stop the sales of calling records with no questions whatsoever. It is thoroughly illegal to obtain information that is detailed on a phone bill - if that information is something only the customer and the phone company should know.
All of the above mentioned things that are no longer allowed to be obtained, bought or sold about another person are considered "Customer Proprietary Network Information" (CPNI.) The Federal Communications Commission is even invoking new mandates to begin in 2008 where the release of any CPNI to an unauthorized individual can incur enormous fines to telephone companies that release the information. This is great news for privacy!
What does that leave the investigation industry available to pursue? At Phone Search Central, we keep on top of laws that affect the industry, and are proud to proclaim that we have never offered any financial information on subjects, nor have we accessed/pretexted/bought/sold CPNI. What we can offer investigators, bail bondsmen, attorneys, and process servers are "Customer Name and Address." Fortunately, a customer's name and address are not considered CPNI, and therefore we are still legally allowed to act when inviduals believe they can hide behind their cellular telephone number. This freedom to obtain such information has located runaway/kidnapped children, parents that hide from paying their child support, and fugitives from the law, to name a few.
Order a FULLY LEGAL Phone Search
The United States Congress has enacted laws that affect other sites borderline-illegal offerings in recent years, thus making them fully illegal. The first law to come into play was the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999, which prohibited pretexting in efforts to obtain another person's financial information.
Last year, another law was passed that was designed to stop anyone but you from looking at your telephone bill. It was a very popular subject in the news for quite some time: anyone with a small amount of money could purchase anyone else's calling details. The connotations of this ability of anyone to obtain another person's calling records, or "tolls" as they are often called, sparked outrage amongst privacy minded individuals.
The law to protect your calling records is called "Telephone Records and Privacy Protection Act of 2006." The full text of either of the laws I've mentioned can be found at thomas.loc.gov.
Specifically, in the latter law, you can no longer obtain, buy or sell the following information about another person's telephone account:
Information about the "quantity, technical configuration, type, destination, location, or amount of use of a service offered by a covered entity, subscribed to by any customer of that covered entity, and kept by or on behalf of that covered entity solely by virtue of the relationship between that covered entity and the customer;"
This means it is ILLEGAL to obtain, buy or sell information about how often someone makes a phone call, how their account is set up, what kind of plan they have, what numbers they call, where the calls originate from (yes, some sites were selling GPS information obtained from phones!) or how often they use their phone.
Other stipulations of this bill are that no one can obtain information that "is made available to a covered entity by a customer solely by virtue of the relationship between that covered entity and the customer" -- in other words, information that only a customer and the telephone company should know. This can include any number of things, for example: did the customer need to pay a deposit to get telephone service established? Is the customer entitled to any discounts through his or her work or school?
And finally, information that "is contained in any bill, itemization, or account statement provided to a customer by or on behalf of a covered entity solely by virtue of the relationship between that covered entity and the customer." Again, this part of the law is designed to stop the sales of calling records with no questions whatsoever. It is thoroughly illegal to obtain information that is detailed on a phone bill - if that information is something only the customer and the phone company should know.
All of the above mentioned things that are no longer allowed to be obtained, bought or sold about another person are considered "Customer Proprietary Network Information" (CPNI.) The Federal Communications Commission is even invoking new mandates to begin in 2008 where the release of any CPNI to an unauthorized individual can incur enormous fines to telephone companies that release the information. This is great news for privacy!
What does that leave the investigation industry available to pursue? At Phone Search Central, we keep on top of laws that affect the industry, and are proud to proclaim that we have never offered any financial information on subjects, nor have we accessed/pretexted/bought/sold CPNI. What we can offer investigators, bail bondsmen, attorneys, and process servers are "Customer Name and Address." Fortunately, a customer's name and address are not considered CPNI, and therefore we are still legally allowed to act when inviduals believe they can hide behind their cellular telephone number. This freedom to obtain such information has located runaway/kidnapped children, parents that hide from paying their child support, and fugitives from the law, to name a few.
Order a FULLY LEGAL Phone Search
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Prank Callers AND Website Content Thieves are in the Same Category: Despicable!
It is sad to write a very long, verbose webpage with many keywords that are applicable to your site's content, and then have a very lazy person who touts their high "integrity" on their website come along and steal it all!
Especially when that lazy person doesn't notice that David Duchovny ONLY uses Phone Search Central and would never use a competitors website. THE ONLY PHONE SEARCH SITE ENDORSED BY DAVID DUCHOVNY IS PHONE SEARCH CENTRAL! Don't fall for competitors lies about David Duchovny when they're too lazy to even read the text they've cut and pasted and lied about.
Especially when that lazy person doesn't notice that David Duchovny ONLY uses Phone Search Central and would never use a competitors website. THE ONLY PHONE SEARCH SITE ENDORSED BY DAVID DUCHOVNY IS PHONE SEARCH CENTRAL! Don't fall for competitors lies about David Duchovny when they're too lazy to even read the text they've cut and pasted and lied about.
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