Verizon and Caller ID

So an odd thing happened when I got a call from Verizon Wireless.

We had a bunch of calls on our Caller ID from when we were out — all of them showing as “Pay Phone.” Weird — I thought someone was calling us from some road somewhere.

Then it happened while I was home and I picked up. I hear a recording: “This is Verizon. This call will be recorded and monitored.”

So I hung up. (Wouldn’t you? I had no clue what it was, and if it was a pay phone, why would Verizon declare that it was listening in? Something was weird.)

Something made me think, so I looked at my Verizon Wireless bill, and it turns out we missed a payment. A-ha — the call must have been from them asking for money. I went and paid it.

Still, it’s weird that Verizon’s billing department is being listed as “Pay Phone.” Either its system is screwed up and the name is coming up wrong, or Verizon is deliberately trying to masquerade calls from the billing department so people won’t ignore them. Neither makes a whole lot of sense, but since I paid the bill the calls have stopped.

Does it strike you as kosher that a company is able to change what comes through on Caller ID? What if I wanted “Pay Phone” to appear when I called someone?

This actually happened before, with Karen’s old credit-card company. Whenever they called (before we straightened the whole mess out) it came up as 111-111-1111. Not “Private” or “Unavailable,” but that. More weirdness.

Important: There is a follow-up to this entry at http://www.kantor.com/blog/2004/12/index.shtml#000424.