There are few things in life half as frustrating as having an “Unknown Caller” appear on your caller id during a meal of an evening. What is even more frustrating is when the same caller continues to bother you regardless of how many times you ask for them to please stop calling.

A possible flip side to this is when the caller is not a solicitor and in fact, a someone who could potentially be a threat. And to make matters worse, the police and the phone company are of little help unless a clear threat has been made, which can make dealing with the situation rather troubling.

Then finally, we have the question of whether or not there is infidelity afoot. Obviously a less common threat for most people, but in some cases odd phone calls coming out of nowhere can in some cases be a sign of a spouse cheating in the relationship.

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To better combat this problem, here are some tools you can add to your arsenal to keep this sort of thing from getting out of hand.

Annoying phone solicitors.

• 800Notes - First find out who it actually is. I recommend using 800Notes for this as they have a small community that likely have users having calls coming from the some problem as you are. Even better, discover a phone number that could potentially be linked to a suspected scam so you can warn others in the same area.
• DNCR - Get your phone number on the Do No Call Registry here in the US, if this is your country of residence. Canadians should have something similar here soon it looks like. After 30-some odd days, the calls should all but stop.

Harassing phone calls.

When dealing with calls where no ‘explicit’ threat has been made and the authorities have been of no help whatsoever, there are some things you can do in the short term.

• Contact your local phone company - Depending on the local laws, in some locations they can even place a “trap” for the harassing caller, that can then work toward giving you a stronger case to later present to the authorities.

Late night mystery calls.

In this age of cell phones, the practice of a late night phone call from someone unknown has become something of a blast from the past. In short, it just does not happen that often anymore. Still, should it occur, knowing how to deal with this can prove helpful.

• Google the number - Assuming you have the phone number off of caller id, just paste the phone number into Google and often times you will find a lead as to who it might belong to.
• Reverse phone number lookup - Utilize a reliable reverse phone number lookup service like this one for help.
• Mobile Reverse phone number lookup - If the previous tool is not work for you, consider utilizing one designed specifically for mobile phones instead.