Caller ID, this is Caller ID

In the last few days, I've been calling myself on our land line (yes, we still have one). When the phone rings, I stop what I'm doing and walk to the phone to look at the caller ID. Then, depending on the caller ID, I answer the phone or (more likely), I end the call.

A half dozen or more times in the last week, the caller ID has announced that the caller was me. "Hal Tarleton" the caller ID said, followed by my land line phone number (which I won't include here so as not to encourage other such calls).

This weird phenomenon (I called my own number from my own number!) also happens on my cell phone. Odd calls, at all hours of the day, but particularly around meal time, show up on my cell phone showing me I'm being called by myself or a person unknown to me.

I do not answer these calls. I have tried blocking the calls, but that seems to do no good. The phone keeps ringing with the same mysterious caller IDs. Sometimes it is a person's name, sometimes even a name that looks familiar; sometimes the caller ID is only a location, such as Moyock, NC (I don't know anyone in Moyock).

The problem isn't that lots of people are suddenly calling me. The problem is that telemarketers have found a way to counterfeit caller IDs and phone numbers to make calls in disguise. This is the hackers' way around the vaunted but largely unsuccessful "Do Not Call" lists. The current callers from counterfeited caller IDs are laughing at the "Do Not Call" lists. There is no enforcement, no effective punishment for commercial abuse of telephone services, whether by copper wire or cellular signals.

The fundamental problem is that the Federal Communications Commission and Congress are not serious about the annoying, disruptive and downright infuriating telephone calls. The calls range from offers of time-share vacations to warnings "from Microsoft" that your computer is going to stop working if you don't respond to this call and send us money pronto! A few people fall for these sales pitches, and the telemarketers and scam artists have just enough success to make their tactics profitable.

Legislation that would put some teeth in the bans on unsolicited calling keeps stalling in Congress. Political candidates are not touting this issue, and no groundswell is developing. These calls are an annoyance in a political atmosphere with much more serious problems.

Won't someone please address this annoying development?