Ghost calls are so named because they are calls where seemingly no one is on the other end. In other words, your phone rings, you answer, say “hello,” but hear nothing in response. Eventually, the call disconnects on its own, as if the other side hung up. Sometimes this happens immediately and sometimes it takes a while.

This may lead you to believe that what you experienced was a dropped call or a poor audio quality call—that some legitimate caller was on the other end, but you simply could not hear them due to a technical issue, and they hung up out of frustration or the call broke.
While this is certainly possible, it is usually not the case, and there are a few simple ways to tell the difference.

What causes ghost calls?
Ghost calls are typically caused by malicious spammers. For this reason, they can also be referred to as “spam calls” or “fraud calls.” They are typically made with a computer that digitally calls many random numbers at a time. Therefore, there is no real human on the other end manually calling you. The spammer could be trying to probe your telephone network for security vulnerabilities, or they could be simply trying to find out what telephone numbers are in use so they know if they can safely spoof their caller ID using your number later on without getting caught.

What can I do to prevent this from happening?
The best way to deal with spam calls is to simply block the number. Most VoIP (Voice over IP) communication solutions allow users to dynamically block incoming calls on a per number basis. You should contact your VoIP provider for more information on how this can be done.

If you are one of Triton’s customers, this information can be found here: (link to Wildix info page/guide on blacklisting calls).

What is the difference between a dropped call or no audio call and a ghost call?
Typically, if you are experiencing dropped calls or poor-quality calls (such as loss of audio), you will at least hear something from the other end. For example, it is much more common to have a conversation with someone where every other word cuts out as opposed to one where you hear nothing from the very beginning.

Similarly, if you experienced a call drop, you probably talked to a real person for at least a few seconds before the call ended.

A ghost call will not have this behavior. You will hear complete silence, not even background static or dead air. Another dead giveaway is if the call comes from a number that you do not recognize. Even if you are 100% sure the call came from a legitimate number, it may still be a ghost call since spammers can spoof caller IDs. You could try calling the known associate back and asking if anyone experienced a phone issue while trying to reach you. Lastly, the cause is a lot more likely to be a technical problem if this happens on every call, rather than intermittently.

What if I am sure it was a dropped or loss of audio call?
You should report this to your VoIP provider. If you have already performed troubleshooting steps and know for sure that the call was not a ghost call, be sure to let them know and explain why. It will save time during their investigation and lead to a faster resolution. For example, if your VoIP provider knows your customers are calling back to complain about the poor service, they will know the issue is not ghost calls.