Cell phone hoax no joke to St. Charles-area teen

It's like something out of a horror movie.

A 17-year-old girl, home alone, gets successive calls on her cell phone. The screen shows the calls are being made from her home landline. The male caller, in a mumbled, unfamiliar voice, tells her to "Get out now."

Afraid an intruder has gotten in to the house, the panicked teen calls her mother. The mother tells her to remove the window screen from the office she's in, crawl out and run for help to a neighbor. The mom stays on the line with her daughter, and borrows another person's phone and calls 911, then speeds home.

Kane County Sheriff's deputies investigate at the St. Charles Township home and determine the teen was the victim of a prank call, made by using a cell phone app.

"It was awful," said the mother, who said her daughter was "hysterical" after the calls. "It was an awful, frightening experience."

The app is something people can download to a cell phone or computer, then input someone's home and cell phone numbers to make the scary call.

"I don't know who thinks up this stuff. It's kooky," the mother said.

Fortunately for the family, the room the victim was in was on the first floor, so she did not hurt herself crawling out the window.

A search of the Internet reveals many prank call apps available for purchase, including "Scary Phone" by app developer Yizhan Ye of Australia. Ye initially agreed to be interviewed by e-mail, but has not responded to questions. The "Scary Phone" app can be purchased through Apple's iTunes online store. Apple has more than 250,000 apps available for purchase, including 29 by Ye. It is not known what app may have been used.

Calls for comment have been left with a spokesman for Apple.

A sheriff's department spokesman said the prank apps are a variation on Caller ID number-spoofing, which has been around for years.

"To do this, you have to have two things: the home phone number and the cell number," Kane County Sheriff's Lt. Patrick Gengler said. "So it is somebody who knew her."

The investigation is closed for now, unless the girl starts receiving other calls that indicate the call was the beginning of a campaign of harassment, Gengler said. The mother said Thursday the girl has not received any more prank calls, and that she has not changed her number.

Gengler did not know if the calls could be traced, but the mother said their cell phone carrier said it may be possible.

The U.S. House passed a bill earlier this year that would make it a federal crime to manipulate caller identification information. The bill was sent to the Senate in April and awaits a vote. The Senate passed a similar bill in 2009; the bills are now being worked on in a joint committee. It is mainly aimed at people who have criminal or fraudulent intent when they make calls, such as those trying to scam people into giving up information about their bank accounts, and debt collectors or telephone harassers trying to get around call-blocking.