applecare spam call trying to report

Yes, the hosts sometimes miss things. Someone likely reported your post as having a scammer's number in it, without checking to see that the crooks were spoofing one of Apple's own genuine phone numbers. Then in turn, the host didn't notice or check to see what the number was and edited it.

That said, a lot of scam phone numbers reported here do call directly back to a scam operation. So speed was likely considered more important at editing the number than to see who it belonged to.

So why do the editing at all when anyone reading the topic can also read it's referring to a scam? Because if left, Google and other search engines pick these numbers up. In turn, they show up in links for "Apple Support" with the phone number. We've seen numerous scammers do this themselves in posts on this forum. They'll drop a dozen or more posts, often under three or four new user accounts, asking "Is this a legitimate number?" The giveaway is they post the exact same text over and over in new topics. And the purpose for that is what I mentioned. They want search engines to pick up "Apple Support" with their phone number.

Because of that, the hosts try to remove any possible scam numbers as quickly as possible.

Yes, I know you said number on Caller ID was a real Apple number, and I repeated it. A real, spoofed number from a crook.

Caller ID is essentially useless. On our home business land line, we have distinctive ring. Any long distance number has a different ring. We get at least six calls per day where the number shown is a local area code, but the ring is long distance. It's an instant giveaway it's a scam/spam call before we even pick up the phone.

Wish I could get that. But NoMoRoBo isn't available with CenturyLink's system.

There is actually a reason scammers do those one ring hangups. They hope the person who was called will be curious enough to call the number back. Basically, they can call a lot more marks per second that way and only try to scam the ones who call back.

Actually, they do this also because they claim it is NOT spam/scam if you press 1 (or whatever) or call them back. I thought I would try to find out who one of the more annoying ones was (since all I ever got was "welcome to Marriott" before hanging up with, of course, various "neighbor" numbers in the caller ID), so, instead of hanging up, I pressed 1. I was very nice and "interested" and found out: they said they are a marketing company for hotels like Marriott, Hilton, and others, located in Florida. And, since I pressed 1, he considered that as me calling them, so there is no scam, spam, or anything else. I then contacted Marriott corporate and they claimed they would never do that and said that they were a victim as well - not sure I believe that. But, anyway, so much for trying. I did threaten the guy in Florida and the number of calls decreased for a while.

That makes sense. Both sites I read on one-ring calls only mentioned the idea is to wait for the victim to call back. It makes for more sense expanded to the nonsense defense, "It's not a scam call if you call them."

Of course it's still a scam call! One, you wouldn't have called that number in the first place if you phone hadn't rung and shown that number. And two, calling them doesn't make a scam any less of one.

Yes! A few articles I've read on scam calls (MS tech in your example) is to never engage them. Don't yell. Don't lead them on pretending to be taken in. Just hang up.

Their number one reason? The better scammers do all of these calls through computers (which is how they create any name and number to show up on your Caller ID). Those systems keep track of how long you've been kept on the line. Over a certain time held on the phone, your name and number automatically gets added to a "suckers" list, which gets sold to other scammers. You will then get even more scam calls.

Their suggestion, pretty much without exception, is to simply hang up the moment you suspect it's a scam.

There's no point trying to report a scam caller. Any number shown on the Caller ID will have been spoofed. It's not the number they're really calling from.

The only solution is to hang up.