Hope you got a laugh from the cartoon :-)

Just about everyone has had to deal with a prank caller at one time or another. Usually it's just a harmless annoyance, but sometimes a prank-call can give you the heebie-jeebies or the downright creeps! And if that happens, you'll want to know who's behind the call.

That's what happened to me, and I took action and traced the caller. It turned out to be a mistaken fellow who thought he was playing a joke on his friend, so I didn't need to pursue it further. But just knowing that put my mind at ease. And of course, the prank calls stopped.

If you have ever had a prank phone call that had you curious, annoyed or worse, you will feel better knowing the truth of who is behind it. I know I did. And here's how:

'So how did you go about it?' you may be wondering. I'll tell you what I've learned.

If you try one of the "free" on-line look-up sites that only show numbers from land-lines and choke up your computer with spyware and ads, you may get lucky. But if you really want to get to the bottom of who is behind those annoying prank phone calls, try a service that will trace not only land-line phones but also cell phones. For this I recommend using an inexpensive, yet complete service like Reverse Phone Detective.

One caveat: in order to use a service of this kind you first need to have a phone number to check. Some of the more devious pranksters may try to hide their phone number from you by pressing *67 on their touch-tone phone before placing the call. Caller-ID displays these incoming calls as "anonymous" or "private". I have found that there is a simple solution to this problem. All you need to do is use *77 on your touch-tone phone to activate Anonymous Call Rejection (ACR) which is available from your phone company for a small fee or sometimes for no charge at all depending on your carrier.

By using your ACR feature, an incoming call from a blocked number is required to be unblocked before the call will ring through to your phone. The prankster is required by the phone company to unblock their number using *82 or choose not to complete the call. Sometimes this feature alone can end unwanted calls. You can activate or deactivate this service by simply entering *77 on your touch-tone phone. That's all there is to it! Then, if the caller persists, you have the number they have called from and can take the next step and use a service like Reverse Phone Detective to get to the bottom of it for good.

Remember, this service allows you to get the information you need to do something about harassing phone callers and works even if they are calling from a cell phone. Click here to find out how you can trace that caller now.

I hope this article has been entertaining and informative. Have you had an experience with a prank caller? Let me know your thoughts, tips and experiences by commenting below. And if you were able to resolve your problems with prank phone callers from what you learned here I'd be glad to hear your testimonial.