My mom finished a call with my sister and set her iPhone down. A few seconds later, my dad's Android phone started ringing and displayed my mom's name, while my mom's phone also rang and showed my dad's name. My dad's phone wasn't near him at the time. Has anyone experienced this, and how could both phones appear to be calling each other?
3 Answers
The most likely explanation is caller-ID spoofing. A third party or automated calling service can make each phone display the other person’s number, even though neither phone actually placed the call. Check the carrier’s call records rather than relying only on the phones’ recent-call lists. If there were no outgoing calls on either account, spoofing is the likely cause, and there’s no reason to factory-reset the phones.
Caller ID isn’t proof of who placed a call. The displayed name or number can be forged, and some services can even make it appear that both sides are receiving calls from each other. If it happens again, avoid answering suspicious calls, save the timestamps, and ask the carrier to check the detailed call records.
Scammers sometimes spoof familiar numbers to make people answer. It can look like your own number is calling you, or like two people in the same family are calling each other. It’s probably unrelated to the phones being close together and may simply have been a spoofed or automated call.
I didn’t think the phones were literally communicating with each other—I just didn’t know the term for what happened or whether something else could explain it.
Thanks, I mainly wanted to know whether there was another explanation for it.