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When Yvonne Stefancic answered her phone at 3:52 p.m. Monday, the woman at the other end wanted to know why Ms. Stefancic had called. Ms. Stefancic’s number was on the caller-ID display of the woman’s phone.

Ms. Stefancic was confounded. No, Ms. Stefancic replied, she had not called even though the number was clearly hers.

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Then came another call. And another. One man told Ms. Stefancic he had been receiving calls from her line for about a month, and was now phoning to tell her to buzz off. On Tuesday morning, Ms. Stefancic received phone calls from two people who explained they first started taking calls about a month ago from a deeply accented man pitching duct-cleaning services.

To add to Ms. Stefancic’s misery, her dog, Kita, barked whenever the phone rang. The deluge of calls continued for almost two days, and Kita barked herself to the point where she just stopped.

Ms. Stefancic’s phone provider, Primus, started monitoring her phone and estimated that at certain times, two to three calls were being made to her line every second. The company concluded she was a victim of a rising practice known as caller ID “spoofing.” It often involves unscrupulous telemarketers or con artists. Unfortunately, tracking down spoofers is difficult, especially as many are believed to be operating at call-in centres in southern Asia.