they clamed we need this survice but we told them to peddle there scam someplace elsewhere

You would think that the owners of Creative Openings INC.should have gotten the idea that the calls they are making are illegal when the Wisc. Dept. Of  Justice filed an enforcement action against them on July 2nd 2012 for placing hundreds of thousands of calls that violated the Wisconsin do not call list! They have also had 18 Better Business Bureau complaints against them in the last 12months! If I didn't live so far from them (I'm in the Mauston area) I would visit their locations at N2277and N2307 W 41 Frontage Rd in Kaukauna, Wi with a trailer load of half-bricks to be deposited through their office and showroom windows, which would keep them busy replacing their own windows,so they wouldn't need to call us about replacing ours. What we need is an "Ernest T Bass" in the Kaukauna vicinity. Creative Openings is a perpetual pest!

I called them and threatened, politely, that they are in wissconsin, MY state, UNDER the jurisdiction of MY STATE & LOCAL POLICE, and that they WILL BE REPORTED!  An local officer has agreed to hear our complaint, and we'll see if it leads to anything.

They are SO cheap (no bucks for 800#) and RUDE that they seem NOT TO CARE that I KNOW where they ARE and that COPS CAN AND WILL ACT!

I received a call from this number 20 min ago.  I didn't answer nor did they leave a message.  I have Charter for my landline phone & have blocked the number.

Received this robot call today, even though we are on the do not call list. It looks like it's about time to disconnect the land line, this was the 6th scammer call today.

This number appears on my caller ID nearly every other day; no message and I refuse to pick up.  It angers me even more because I'm on the "no call" list.

It sure is ridiculous that the medical alert system scammers, and the card services scammers, who are one in the same, are still out there trying to fool us into giving them our credit card numbers after so many years. If everyone who recognizes this as a scam spread the word of it, these lowlife scummy drug addicts, who prey mainly on the gullible and the elderly, would have already died in withdrawal. These creatures are so low they shouldn't even be called scum, because scum floats on the top of a septic tank--think about what falls to the bottom, and there's where you'll find the card service scammers!

They called at 9 PM and I did not answer but it was a medical alert system company on the message they left. Ridiculous!

The do not call list means nothing to criminals such as the card service scammers, who try to fool folks into giving them their credit card numbers so they can cheat them.

I am on the "do not call list" and I am still getting these calls.

got call from this number 10:53 a.m no message left on machine

Verizon, and now Frontier, state that they cannot provide us with high speed internet service seeing we are so far from the central office, so we have HughesNet which we've been pleased with, but it's pricey. Anyway, getting back to the V Dialer, I've noticed that without exception, all the calls we've received through the V Dialer, and on all the postings I've seen, the date and time correspond to the time zone the recipient of the call is in. I find it unlikely all of the incoming calls were placed from the same time zone as the receiving party. What's your thought on how that happens? I have a few ideas, what do you know or think? It could be very interesting if somehow that part of the information was being added on the receiving end.

Same phone call, didn't pick up, they left no message.

I am somewhat familiar with your area, because I sometimes pass through it on the way to Minneapolis and have actually visited the Wisconsin Dells on a pleasure trip.  (I'm not really sure if that's considered "W. Central Wisconsin" or not, but I would imagine that Eau Claire would be, and Frontier is certainly a phone service provider in that area.

Comcast is a cable/telephone provider in many cities (including Minneapolis and some Florida cities, for example, but not where I live), and there are a lot of complaints on the Internet about their service.  I gather that you get wireline service from Frontier, though, because you say there is no cable TV service at your location.  I can only say that Frontier seems to have a large number of dissatisfied customers, too, but as with many Google searches, the lists of complainers may be self-selected and/or include duplicates and/or be exaggerated because they provide Internet services and Google indexes, ... well, the Internet.  Also, Angie's List reports that telephone companies and Internet service providers are among the top ten companies for which they receive complaints.

I can't say that I have found many complaints about Frontier's wireline services, although I doubt that most people would know the difference between an Internet-based phone service and a Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) if their lives depended on it.  Nor would they understand the intricacies involved in providing CNAM caller ID Name information or the "dips" that companies pay to search databases besides their own for CNAM.  But because Frontier split off from Verizon, it wouldn't surprise me in the least that they no longer have access to Verizon's database, and, to save money, they simply accept and relay any name provided by a VoIP caller in the initiating caller's setup dialog to make it look like they are providing CNAM, which they are not really doing.  Otherwise, the V number provided as the caller ID name could not possibly change from call to call and would take  several days to a week to change.  

Or perhaps the callers are actually using Frontier's lines themselves.  It might be worth asking Frontier about it when you get one of these calls.  My resources say the number in question is in a block controlled by McCleod Telecommunications, and following that link takes me to Windstream Broadband Networks.  That last company seems to have a very liberal acceptable use policy.  Whether that's good or bad may depend on whether they are only interested in protecting just their own network or the Internet and telephone system as a whole.

I don't answer any calls anymore.  I first look them up on Google.  I am beginning to
think the phone companies like this charade.  Anytime I answer I get nicked five cents on my tracfone.

Hi Mouse--No Comcast here. We're in W. Central WI in the middle of nowhere 8 miles from town, so there's no cable (I guess that's what Comcast is ?) anywhere near us. Our provider is Frontier (formerly Verizon). I'm wondering if the folks receiving the calls for these 2 companies (medic alert for seniors and creative openings) which are at the least violators of the do not call list, if not complete frauds, if you study the comments about them, are all located in WI, as creative openings does have a business in Kaukauna,WI, or if these 2 are nationwide pests. After researching it a bit more it appears that each one of these V Dialers has a default to display the date,time,seconds and calling sequence, with an option to display a spoofed number of your choice. By the way, I just saw another post of a V number displayed on an apparently Eastern time zone person concerning my all time favorite scammers, card services---417 800 2330.

It appears this number is from telemarketers. I am on the no call list, yet still received it

Tom,

You wouldn't by any chance be using Comcast as a telephone service provider, would you?  The reason I ask is that someone else (jm) posted two remarks along the same line as my comment in a forum on this site entitled "Caller ID shows 'V' + a whole bunch of digits" on April 7, 2013:

http://800notes.com/forum/ta-3f0852449bac17d- ... bunch-of-digits

He had the same idea I had that these "V" numbers had to get into a database somewhere and searched by caller ID to be displayed on your phone.  His theory is that Comcast is so cheap that they don't even do this for incoming calls to avoid paying the "dip," i.e., the cost of searching an outside database provider for an actual caller name, or CNAM, which they would have to do, for example, with a POTS, i.e., plain old telephone system (analog wireline) call.  This "dip" is usually about one cent per call or less.  

I have noticed that my own calls to Comcast numbers (and some other phone companies) show a "default" caller ID name (CNAM) that is not even close to the one I paid my phone company to register.  But the default name has nothing to do with any equipment or software at my end and never changes.  (By the way, there are companies that claim to be able to correct this deficiency in the CNAM system for you, but they are prohibitably expensive.  See, for example, http://www.fixcallerid.com/dropping-the-calling-name-ball.html )

If, as jm speculates, Comcast is allowing direct SIP connections to its network, there is an outside chance, at least, that there is enough information to trace at least the approximate source of these calls from the out-of-band signaling that arrives at a VoIP telephone without having to resort to a warrant.  All you would need is a packet sniffer or even a SIP logging program to do so.

So it might be really helpful if some of the people receiving "V" numbers as caller ID names also report the name of the phone company they use and their approximate location (country, or country and either state or province should be enough).

Hello Mouse! As far as I know the "V" indicates the call is being placed using a V Dialer (a type of robodialer) that can simply appear on the caller id name area as either the V and the sequence of numbers,or if the user elects, any spoofed number they choose. From the calls that myself and other have received I am almost certain that the numerals following the V correspond to the date, followed by the time (military) including seconds and then by the sequential order of the call. I don't know the possibilities of tracing the user of a V Dialer, but I do know, with a court order, the providers of the many spoofing services advertised on the internet must divulge their users. Regardless of exactly how all this works,( I'm sure there are many variations) if the legislation, that I have read is pending to outlaw spoofing of name and number on caller id passes the scammers, and those not obeying the do not call list could be identified, located and prosecuted. Until that time,spreading the word of the many scams currently going on will help others to avoid being cheated.The calls can certainly be annoying, but it's sure worse to actually get scammed!

Tom,

Is the "V" coming in as part of the caller ID number or as part of the caller name?  I didn't think the letter "V" is one of the symbols that is displayable as a caller ID number.

On the other hand, if this so-called "V number" is being displayed as the caller ID name, that raises some interesting possibilities for tracing the call back to the real source.  I don't think calls made through one VoIP provider to another actually transmit a caller ID name from the originator to the receiver -- the receiving VoIP provider has to look up the name in a database that is typically provided by a third party and indexed by caller ID number.  Getting a name to propagate from one database provider to another typically takes several days or even a week to accomplish -- far more than the typical times between calls made by telemarketers and scammers.

I could be wrong about all this, but the only ways I can conceive of the "V number" changing as rapidly as it must to be what you say it is, is for both the originating caller and the receiving caller to either be on the same network or to be on different networks using the same database.  And given the speed at which all this must take place, I would say that being on the same network would be the more likely of the two possibilities.

If I am correct in all of this (and I am not certain that I am yet), I could see how this sort of information may be of great use to a VoIP provider and/or a police or regulatory agency trying to track down the call.

The "V'' indicates it is an internet placed call, using a spoofed (false) number which is commonly used by scammers such as these, in order to hide their true identities and locations.The numerals after the "V"show the month, day and time and other info of the calling party. I have never seen a legitimate call yet with a caller id such as this. Beware of these scammers and warn others before they are cheated!

The caller ID also has a 15 digit number beginning with "V"

These scammers run TWO scams, both of which are attempts to cheat the elderly. One is the medical alert for seniors scam which runs on a scare tactic, and the other is a scam to install windows. Both of these scams, besides being run by the same scammers, are similar in another way ---they both try to get your credit card number,one way or another, so they can rip you off.

Called several times, but no answer when I picked up the phone.

This company has called me at least 5 times. they say if you don't want them to call you again press 5, which I have done each time, they still keep calling. this last time I called back the number and spoke with someone, and told him to remove my number or I would press charges.  I doubt it will work, but I trien

I believe this to be scam.  They said someone ordered a medical alert system, they had bought & paid for it.  They wanted to set up a time to come & install it.  I said we did not order it, I don't want it.  He said he had info that someone in our househeld recently fell. That is not true.  He just kept on talking.  Then he told me it had already been shipped.  I told him if that were the case, I would return it unopened.  He got irratated & hung up on me.  He did not tell me there would be a monthly bill.

Very RUDE response to my reply to THIER inquiry...go with a REPUTABLE company.  NO medical alert company solicits like this.

Call from this number came in at 8:30pm, after I had already been in bed for an hour. I let it go to v/m but still had trouble getting back to sleep. Of course no message was left. These are nothing but harassment calls and I am on every NO CALL LIST known to man. someone needs to investigate who these crooks are & arrest them.

These scammers call every day disturbing my household.  My husband is ill and I do not need them calling my telephone.  Please put a stop to this

Is there anyway to dump these dummies????