evidence: This scam is called number spoofing, and here’s how it works: criminals clone the actual telephone number of an organization they want to impersonate. Using specialized technology, the number appears on the victim's caller ID display. Then, when you answer the call, they often pose as credit union staff, police officers or other trusted organizations in order to persuade you to disclose sensitive financial and personal details – often on the pretense that fraud has been detected on your account. In many cases – because a well-known precaution for phone scams is to hang up and initiate the phone call yourself – the criminal will ask you to call the credit union on the number on the back of the card (the same number displayed on your handset). But instead of terminating the call on their end, the fraudsters simply keep the phone line open, play a fake dialing tone and pretend to answer your "call."