I always thought the caller ID information was from how ever you set up your account with the phone company....

I came in my office the other day and looked at the last call I got and still can not figure this one out. Who entered the information in and did they realize just how redundant it it?

Caller ID (CID) data can be associated with a call at several levels. First, it can be carried as a data packet between the first and second (or second and third) "rings." Rings is in quotes because many voice communication technologies no longer provide or support the traditional telephony ring voltages on a classic POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) tip and ring circuit. Instead, mobile and other data-based phones manufacture the ring when they begin receiving incoming call origination data packets. These data packets can contain caller ID data, which may be different from the originating number data. Most mobile and other call handlers also will maintain a list of known numbers (AKA a phone book or address book), and can be configured to display CID information based on that dataset.

In the POTS scenario, and this is only applicable if you are answering a call with a telephone set installed more than 30 years or so ago, CID can be set by the originating phoneset or the device that it connects to that in its turn is connected to the network that forwards the call to its destination. This forwarding device (a central office or other phone switch) can inject, modify, or remove CID data, as can the phone switch at the receiving end that is actually responsible for providing the ring voltages to the pair of wires connected to the receiving phoneset. Most, if not all, "long lines" these days are actually carried on the same networks that form the global Internet in the form of SIP traffic so the possible participants in the CID dance include many of those described in the following paragraph. Even then, the box on the outside of the house to which the inside phone jacks are wired are often ONTs (Optical Network Termination) or other active conversion devices.

As intimated by the preceding, modern voice communication technology is very different from traditional telephony, even more different from the ancient phone services provided by a bank of (overwhelmingly female) "operators" manually plugging and unplugging phone plugs into phone jacks (where the terms tip and ring come from) to automated SxS and crossbar switching machines. Nowadays, almost all switching is done electronically by specially designed computers, the specially designed computers (cell phones, VoIP/SIP phones, softphones, etc.) that originate and receive calls, and virtually all telephone traffic is carried (at least to the household junction box) in digital data packets rather than on analog circuits. In this technological stew, CID can be manipulated in virtually every device that handles the bitstream in transit, e.g. the originating device, any router, switch, or firewall that forwards packets, and/or the receiving device. There is no associated metadata to flag what device(s) did so. Combined with number spoofing, the technique used by most abusers of the system, one may conclude that reliance on CID may be unadvised.

To answer the final question in the OP, I would guess that the CID data displayed in the OP was injected by the originating provider based on information they have on their subscriber and complaints they have received from those abused, the "ILLEGAL SCAM" may not be too diligent about paying their bill, or has some low-rate legacy plan which the provider wants to revisit. Or, perhaps, there is an entry in the receiving unit's address book that corresponds, or that device is configured to look up numbers in some sort of network database.

Caller ID is a crock sometimes.. What do you do when caller ID shows that the calling number is coming from your own number???? Don"t answer unless you recognize the caller.... And then you really can not be sure who is actually calling due to the cloaking disguise programs that are being used. .................... drill sgt.

^^^^ Yeah, I recall there are programs that disguise the real number with a bogus one. Forget what they call it.

I remember back before digital, you had to pres *69 on your phone and the calling number would be read back to you. The good old days.....