Shady call? Look it up.

Why ShadyCall exists

Americans file millions of complaints about unwanted calls with the Federal Trade Commission every year, and phone calls and text messages are how most scams start. Scammers rely on one thing: that you answer before you know who it is. A thirty-second lookup beats them, but only if someone has already said what that number is up to.

So ShadyCall puts everything that is publicly known about a number on one free page (no account, no app, and no "full report" behind a paywall) and makes reporting a number take thirty seconds.

Where the information comes from

• ShadyCall reports are written by members of the public about calls and texts they received. They are opinions and experiences, not verified facts.
• FTC complaints: consumers' complaints to the Federal Trade Commission's National Do Not Call Registry about unwanted calls (the number that called, the date, the subject and whether it was a robocall, and the consumer's city and state). The FTC publishes them as open data; we have 388,772 FTC and FCC complaints so far, and new ones arrive every day.
• FCC complaints: consumer complaints to the Federal Communications Commission about unwanted calls, robocalls and texts, also published as open data.
• Carrier and location come from the North American Numbering Plan Administrator (NANPA), which records the carrier and rate center every exchange (the first six digits of a number) was assigned to: 198,825 exchanges in 486 area codes. People keep their numbers when they move or change carriers, so this is where a number started, not necessarily where it is now.

A complaint shows the caller ID the consumer saw. Scammers can fake ("spoof") any number, including a real person's or business's, so a complaint is a warning sign, not proof of who made the call. If your number was spoofed, report it as "My number was spoofed". It helps the next person understand.

How the ShadyCall Score works

The ShadyCall Score turns everything said about a number into one figure from 0 to 100:

• every ShadyCall report has a verdict: a shady call counts 1, not sure counts half and safe counts 0;
• every FTC or FCC complaint counts as a shady call with about a third of a report's weight, and all complaints together never count more than six reports, so people who know a number is genuine can still outweigh them;
• recent reports count more: a report's weight halves after six months, a complaint's after four, so a number that has changed hands recovers;
• reports other people mark as helpful count more (up to double);
• a number always starts from an imaginary "not sure", so one report can move it to 75 or 25, never straight to 100 or 0.

What we never do

• We never sell "background reports", owner names or addresses. ShadyCall doesn't collect them.
• We never write reports ourselves or pass off government complaints as people's posts. Each is labeled for what it is.
• We never store your IP address, and there are no accounts.

Keeping it clean automatically

Nobody has to approve a report before it goes live, so every one is checked by software first: flood limits per visitor, a spam score that holds back ads and copy-paste campaigns, email addresses, card and Social Security numbers masked, web links made unclickable (written as example[.]com) and swearing starred. After that the community keeps it honest: three flags on a report hide it by itself. If something still slips through, tell us.

Privacy

To stop spam and double votes ShadyCall keeps only a one-way code made from your IP address, which can't be turned back into the address. The privacy policy has the details.

Who runs ShadyCall

ShadyCall (shadycall.com) is operated by XTO Pty Ltd (ACN 702 801 410), L1 457 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills, NSW 2010, Australia. ShadyCall is independent: it isn't part of the FTC, the FCC, NANPA, any carrier or any business named on the site.