Funk#49

OK, this is starting to drive me insane. Some outsourcing company is using our DID number display and our company name to send Direct TV sales recordings. They call residences with our Caller ID and play a recording to contact Direct TV but so far no one has given us a number and I'm not sure if a number is given or if it just states "contact Direct TV".

How did they get my DID range? We do not have PRI ISDN displaying our DIDs and we use a pool of outbound only numbers (obviously not our DID numbers). So first, how did they get our range of DIDs?

Secondly, they're falsly using our company name on the Caller ID name display. How easy is it to get this information?

So I tried to contact Direct TV...good luck finding a human being in this automated age. After finally talking to a "supervisor" (yea, right) I told them I need them to contact their outsourced marketing company and have them stop using our information. Needles to say I was talking to a wall.

This keeps on happening and I have no idea how to catch or stop this. It's intermittent and not everyone contacts us to let us know what happened.

We are a hospital and this looks very embarrasing but I don't know where to start.

I realize this is happening everywhere now with websites dedicated to calling cards that allow you to use any Caller ID for "entertainment" purposes ("play jokes on your friends" on one website).

With Skype and other IP communications, is there any way to stop the false use of our information?

Thanks