We’ve been warning you about phone calls from scammers. Some people have told us they’re receiving 3 or 4 of them a day.

Some of the numbers look local, and they’re not always fake.

So what happens when the phone number being spoofed belongs to an actual business?

The Federal Trade Commission says scammers are using local phone numbers as a way to get you to answer your phone.

Oka’s Auto Body in Waipahu tells us someone has been using their number. They’ve had customers tell them they’re going to block their number to prevent more calls, which isn’t good for business.

“I know we did get a customer tell us that she was called at 5 in the morning. She was pretty upset, as you can imagine,” co-owner of Oka’s Auto Body Brandon Okahara said.

For the past few days, Oka’s Auto Body has been inundated with puzzling phone calls.

Okahara says figured it out.

“I have gotten one customer that received a call from our business line supposedly and she did mention she was gonna block our number, which concerned me a little,” Okahara explained. “We’ve been in business for 53 years now. This is not something we would want to jeopardize the reputation that we’ve earned.”

It’s called Caller ID spoofing. It works by tricking you into thinking you’re receiving a legitimate phone call by showing a number in your area code because it’s likelier you’ll answer the phone call if it’s a local number.

Who’s behind the calling?

Super Geeks tells me it could be anyone with basic Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) software.

“It generally will give you the ability to place what you want to appear as your outbound number. That’s it. Someone is typing in a number when they make a call, it looks like the number they’ve typed in is calling,” Tim Caminos, Super Geeks CEO, said.

Turns out, it’s legal.

“It is legal! It’s illegal if the person doing it is doing it with the intent to defraud someone,” Caminos said.

If you find out your number is being spoofed, what can you do?

“You can report it. There are agencies you can report it, there are web links,” Caminos explained.

You can file a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission to protect the privacy of your phone number.

“The best thing to do is not engage anyone you’re not familiar with and just hang up the phone,” Caminos said for people receiving the spoofed calls.

Click here to file a report with the FCC: https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=39744