Can you be charged with making prank calls?

Question

I'm assuming you would be charged for harassment, right? Or is there a specific law that prohibits prank calls? Or can you not be charged at all? I heard that cell phone calls can't be held as credible evidence.

Answer 1

I live in Illinois and I'm pressing charges against someone who has been calling me,

sometimes they threaten,

sometimes they don't.

But in Illinois,there is a great lil thing called *57 that you use right after the crank/prank call.

It sends the person's number,whether private or not to the phone company and sends,

i believe it is a fax or copy directly to the p.station.

Plus when the coppers get here i show them my caller id and all text messages sent from the harassing person.

Answer 2

yes you can... even a blocked call can be traced through the hone company... and then the local poilce can charge you with aggravated assault or harrasment.. now in court it will not go anywhere at most they will get a good laugh at it..

Answer 3

Yes, you can be charged and phone calls, cell and other can be traced. Cell phones will triangulate the call off the towers and they can do a pretty fair job of pinpointing place and time. Most cell phones are also GPS systems and the future is here and now. If you use a cell phone, you could be tracked if someone cared to mess with the average citizen.

By the way, if I recall correctly, the GPS feature is vaild even if the phone is off. I think if we all knew how easy it is to be tracked by vaious means, we'd all be a little shocked.

Answer 4

Cell phone records can be very use full in investigations. Yes threatening or annoying phone calls are in many places against the law.

Answer 5

it kind of depends on the kind of calls you are making. if you were calling 911 and then hangin up that might be considered a misdemeanor at the very least.

and yes, i think you can be charged for certain crimes relating to prank calls, probably harasment or some other misdemeanor level crime.

Answer 6

Yes, no matter how you look at it. it is a form of harassment. Which is a misdemeanor in most states.

Answer 7

Prank calls can be charged as harassment.

See " Law and the Information Superhighway" by Perritt.

Also depending on conversation many other charges?

Answer 8

God I hope not!! lol

Answer 9

Cell phone calls are a lot harder to trace, but there is a way of tracing them if the party being harassed decides to press charges. Cell phone companies are not able to trace "private" calls.

But to answer your question, yes you can be charged.

Answer 10

no this is not true for my state you can be charged with harassment and or threatening depending on the prank and what is said if anything.

Answer 11

You can be charged with harrassment or stalking - depending on the nature & frequency of the calls.

Answer 12

Yes you can be charged with harrassement or terrrositic threats if you threatened the other person.  Remember every time you make a call from you cell phone its on your cell phone bill so all the other person would have to do in order to prove it was you is to supena the bill or the detectives sometimes do it depending on the type of call.  I know with landline meaning house phones where i live you can do *57 and after three sucessful traces you can file a complaint with the police department and they can ask the telephone company for those records.  I had someone make continuous prank calls to my home and cell number.  I finally went to the cops and filed a complaint with them after I got "im going to kill you call" and they were going to put something on my phone to track my calls every call that went in or out they would know where is was coming from.

Answer 13

Its called disorderly conduct