At business registration, you provide identifying business information to help mobile carriers determine a proper label for your outbound phone number(s). This label helps customers understand the potential reason for your call.
When a call is received, the called-party sees a display. This information—also referred to as the call label —may indicate who is calling or why they might be calling.
A label can appear in several forms, including:
- The 10-digit phone number
- A Branded Calling display (i.e. INFORM Branded Calling - display name or with logo)
- CNAM (Caller ID Name, usually 15-character non-customizable text registered with the number)
- City and state (based on the phone number’s area code and prefix)
- The category of outbound calls provided at registration (i.e. Telemarketing, Customer Service)
- A spam or scam tag, if the call is flagged by analytics systems
- UNKNOWN, if no additional data is available or captured at the time of the call
Carriers use analytics systems to identify calls potentially posing risk to consumers. These systems operate dynamically, scrutinizing various factors surrounding each call. Various factors related to calling practices can cause legitimate business calls to be viewed as unwanted communication, resulting in spam or scam tags.
Scam calls are defined as fraudulent calls where the caller misrepresents themselves with the intent to scam victims out of their personal information to defraud them. Spam calls can be from legitimate businesses, however the businesses’ use of unfair or poor calling practices are a nuisance to customers and triggers the Spam tag. Both spam and scam calls can be unwanted communication for customers. Tagging calls as Spam or Scam allows customers to choose whether to answer or ignore a call.