Introduction
If your phone keeps showing “Alon Cohen” on caller ID, it is most likely a spoofed or recycled caller-ID label, not a person to track down. This guide explains what the name means and how to stop the calls, then how carriers fight spam and how businesses avoid being flagged.
Calls Labelled “Alon Cohen”: What It Means and What to Do
A caller-ID name is a label, not proof of who is calling. It comes from a separate database lookup that can be wrong, out of date, or faked, and phone numbers are reassigned all the time. Unverified reports on community call-log sites describe unsolicited, sales-style calls under this name from changing numbers. That fits automated dialling with spoofed caller IDs, not one person ringing you personally.
- Do not call back, press any keys, or share personal or account details.
- Block the number, then switch on your carrier’s or your phone’s spam-call filtering.
- Report the call to the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov, and add your number to the National Do Not Call Registry at donotcall.gov. Scammers ignore the registry, but a call you get after registering is more likely to be illegal.
The rest of this guide covers how carriers stop these calls and how businesses avoid being flagged.
Why Spam Calls Are a Wholesale VoIP Problem
Spam calls exist at the scale they do because VoIP made them cheap. Programmable voice APIs let anyone with a credit card place millions of calls per day.
On top of that, caller-ID spoofing lets the originator hide their identity behind a different number.
For wholesale VoIP carriers, that combination is both a business opportunity and a regulatory problem. The same infrastructure that lets a legitimate contact center dial 100,000 customers a day also lets a fraudster dial 100,000 victims a day. That happens whenever controls are not in place.
The defence against this is a stack of technical and regulatory countermeasures:
- STIR/SHAKEN attestation
- Caller-ID verification
- Robocall Mitigation Database filings
- Traffic-pattern monitoring
- Blocked-prefix lists for premium-rate IRSF targets
- Call-analytics partner registrations
A wholesale VoIP carrier that uses all of these protects its own reputation. It also protects its customers' answer rates and the regulatory licences that the whole business depends on.
STIR/SHAKEN: The Protocol Stack Behind Spam-Call Defence
Further reading: Wholesale pricing & rate deck
STIR/SHAKEN is the caller-ID verification framework the FCC requires for US telephone traffic. STIR (Secure Telephony Identity Revisited) is the underlying cryptographic protocol.
SHAKEN (Signature-based Handling of Asserted information using toKENs) is the deployment framework. Originating carriers use it to attach attestation tokens to outbound calls.
Together, they cryptographically tie the displayed caller ID to a verified business identity. That identity is one the originating carrier has already checked, known as KYC.
Attestation comes in three levels: A, B, and C.
- A-attestation: the carrier verified both the customer and their right to use the specific caller ID
- B-attestation: the carrier verified the customer but not the specific number
- C-attestation: the carrier verified neither, beyond the basic customer relationship
Calls with A-attestation get the highest downstream trust, the fewest spam labels, and the best answer rates. Calls without any attestation are increasingly filtered out at the terminating carrier.
That's how STIR/SHAKEN actually reduces spam calls in practice.
Caller-ID Spoofing and Why It Persists
Caller-ID spoofing displays a false number on the recipient's screen. That lets scammers impersonate legitimate businesses, government agencies, or local neighbours.
It is the hardest part of the spam-call problem, because most people decide whether to answer based on the displayed number.
Spoofing persists even with STIR/SHAKEN in place. This happens when calls come from carriers that have not fully rolled out attestation. These are usually offshore VoIP providers outside the FCC's direct reach.
The defensive response is layered.
- A US wholesale VoIP carrier verifies the caller ID against the customer's registered numbers before signing the call
- Downstream carriers then verify that signature when they receive it
- Call-analytics providers like Hiya, First Orion, and TNS add machine-learning models on top to catch new spam patterns
No single layer solves caller-ID spoofing on its own. Together, though, they make spoofed calls steadily less profitable for fraudsters.
FCC Robocall Mitigation Database Filings
Further reading: Wholesale voice solutions
The Robocall Mitigation Database (RMDB) is the FCC's registry of voice providers that have filed a robocall mitigation plan. Filing is mandatory for US wholesale VoIP carriers.
Downstream carriers must block calls from any provider not listed in the RMDB.
The filing documents what the provider actually does, technically and operationally, to prevent spam calls and robocall abuse on its network.
A credible wholesale VoIP carrier's RMDB filing covers:
- STIR/SHAKEN implementation
- KYC and customer onboarding policies
- Traffic-pattern monitoring
- Response procedures for traceback requests
- IRSF and IRSF-adjacent fraud controls
The filing is public. Any business about to sign with a US wholesale VoIP carrier can look it up. It shows whether the carrier's robocall mitigation programme is real or just paperwork.
Traffic-Pattern Monitoring on a Wholesale VoIP Network
Beyond protocol-level defences, wholesale VoIP carriers also monitor traffic patterns for robocall signatures. Several signs flag a call for review:
None of these signs is conclusive on its own — a legitimate contact center can briefly show high call velocity during a campaign launch — which is why pattern monitoring works best combined with the account's known traffic profile rather than as a standalone trigger.
- Very high call velocity to new numbers
- Extremely short average call duration (ACD)
- Identical dialled-number patterns across many sources
- Rapid round-trip dial patterns
Twiching runs real-time CDR analysis on every customer trunk, with hard spend caps, destination whitelists, and blocked-prefix lists. Suspicious traffic gets paused within seconds, not after a daily report.
How Businesses Avoid Being Labelled as Spam
Further reading: FCC: caller ID authentication (STIR/SHAKEN)
Most of what determines a number's spam risk is within the calling business's own control, not just the carrier's — the steps below cover both sides of that responsibility.
- 01Use a STIR/SHAKEN-compliant wholesale VoIP carrier so every outbound call carries A-level attestation
- 02Ensure your outbound caller ID is a verified number registered to your business — not a borrowed or spoofed one
- 03Maintain healthy calling patterns — avoid extremely high call velocity to unfamiliar numbers
- 04Register your numbers with Hiya, First Orion, and TNS to prevent incorrect spam labelling
- 05Monitor your own number reputation regularly using carrier-provided reputation dashboards
- 06Honour do-not-call lists and use call-completion tracking to catch abandoned-call rate excess
- 07Comply with TCPA consent requirements before initiating any outbound campaign
The carrier and analytics-registration steps are largely one-time setup; calling pattern and reputation monitoring are the ongoing work that keeps a number from drifting into spam territory months after launch.
Twiching's Spam-Call Prevention Posture
Twiching uses STIR/SHAKEN attestation on every US-bound outbound call. It enforces caller-ID verification tied to verified customer identities, and monitors traffic patterns for robocall signatures in real time.
For businesses, this means calls placed through Twiching arrive at terminating carriers with the best possible attestation posture. That improves answer rates on legitimate campaigns and cuts the risk of incorrect spam labelling.
How Attestation Levels Work
The STIR/SHAKEN framework followed FCC mandates put in place in 2021. It requires carriers to digitally sign calls with attestation certificates.
Full attestation (A) certifies that the originating carrier has a direct relationship with the caller, and that the caller is authorised to use the presented number.
Partial attestation (B) certifies the call's originating carrier, but does not verify number authorisation. Gateway attestation (C) applies to calls entering the network from outside the STIR/SHAKEN ecosystem. That includes calls from international carriers or TDM gateways.
Calls with C attestation carry a higher risk of spam labelling by terminating carriers.
Managing Your Number Reputation
Reducing unwanted labelling on legitimate wholesale VoIP traffic takes proactive reputation management. Start by registering your originating numbers in the FCC's Robocall Mitigation Database.
Appeal incorrect spam labels through the FCC's robocall complaint process. You can also appeal directly through the major analytics platforms — Hiya, First Orion, and Transaction Network Services — that supply labelling data to carriers.
Monitoring your outbound calling reputation means checking several data sources.
- The FCC's Robocall Mitigation Database shows whether your company has registered a mitigation programme
- Lookup tools from Hiya, TNS Transaction Network Services, and YouMail show individual number reputation
Conclusion
Spam calls are a layered defence problem. If a name like Alon Cohen shows on your screen, treat it as an unverified label: do not call back, block the number, and report it.
For businesses, the wholesale VoIP carrier you choose shapes how much protection you get by default. Look for STIR/SHAKEN attestation on every call, a real Robocall Mitigation Database filing, traffic-pattern monitoring, and a number-reputation view in your dashboard.
Twiching is built around that posture.
