Carlos Torres, a spokesperson for the Orange County Sheriff's Office.Īccording to Torres, the agency can occasionally identify the caller through a legal process using an email provider, cell carrier or mobile app associated with the number. However, they are looking into the case,' said Capt. '(Our detectives) indicated these types of cases are challenging. Lewis has also filed a complaint with local law enforcement. It is unclear whether the person harassing Lewis specifically used SpoofCard.Īfter News 6 discovered other 'burner phone' apps were being used to contact Lewis, she contacted those companies to report the possible abuse. 'While we don't shy away from the fun and prankster nature of SpoofCard, we also educate customers as to what is and is not appropriate use,' Garr said. 'That being said, we take these complaints very seriously and have robust measures in place to ensure customers who are being harassed or are harassing other customers are resolved.' 'Unfortunately one of the drawbacks of being a public platform is that there will always be 'bad actors' and this problem is not exclusive to TextNow,' said Stacey DeSantis, the public relations manager for TextNow. TextNow users can change their phone number once every 15 days, according to the company's website. As a company we take these cases very seriously and work diligently to combat these bad users by responding to all complaints and working with law enforcement agencies.'Īt least two of the calls to Lewis' phone were placed by numbers originating from a similar app called TextNow, according to the numbers' automated voicemail messages. 'We take a multitude of programmatic and manual measures to detect and stop abuse of our service. 'TextMe provides a communication service to millions of users across the U.S. A burned number may later be assigned to a different user's phone. TextMe also allows subscribers to delete, or 'burn,' a phone number so callers can no longer reach the user at that number. We got an order for Kathy Lewis,' the man said in one of the earliest voicemail messages left on Lewis' cellphone.Īlthough the caller knew her name, Lewis suspected he was not really a Walmart employee.

'(He'll call) nine in a row, 10 in a row,' Lewis said. Since then, she claims she has received several hundred, most originating from a different phone number. The unwanted calls to Lewis' home landline and her cellphone began in March, she said.

'Our terms and conditions very strictly prohibit the use of our service for illegal activities, abuse, fraud or anything of that nature.' Woman receives hundreds of harassing calls, text messages 'We are very sorry to hear our service was misused by a criminal, which is definitely not what our services were designed for,' said Amy Nicole Hernandez, chief financial officer for TextMe, one of the apps used to call Lewis' phones. But like many other forms of technology, the apps can be used in illegal ways.

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