SOUTH BEND — The Better Business Bureau is sending out a warning about a new scam called cell phone spoofing. Hackers can get a hold of your personal information on your cell phone, even make calls from your number.

Spoofing means the same thing as "tricking." Right now police don't know enough about it to help you protect yourself.

"It's a serious problem," said Dreama Jensen, with the Osceola Better Business Bureau.

Cell phone spoofing is also one more way hackers can steal your personal information.

"They can make additional charges to your phone," Jensen said. "They can change your outgoing messages, they can access your voice mail, they can delete it."

According to police and the Better Business Bureau another kind of cell phone spoofing happens when a person disguises their own number.

St. Joseph County High Tech Crimes Commander Mitch Kajzer said people are able to make calls to cell phones and "spoof" their number to make it look like the call is actually coming from another number.

In fact, local police already encounter that during investigations.

"A number comes up that doesn't make any sense at all," Kajzer said. "Like all of the same digit showing up. That's an example of someone doing it trying to block their identity."

The Better Business Bureau says reports of cell phone spoofing have already surfaced in other parts of the country. But how do you tell if someone has stolen your cell phone information?

"You really don't know until some calls come back to you that are not making sense," Jensen explained. "Or you might have a voice message that doesn't make any sense at all — the words are garbled."

Commander Kajzer said if a phone call doesn't seem right, it's probably fishy.

Local police told WSBT they have not received any reports of cell phone spoofing here yet, but they're sure it's happening. Even if they do catch a spoofer in action, there's not a whole lot law enforcement can do about it.

Kajzer said he does not know of any statutes against spoofing, which means it isn't necessarily illegal. It's a great example of how technology stays ahead of criminal laws, explained Kajzer. Local deputy prosecutors told WSBT they would deal with cell phone spoofing on a case-by-case basis.

Right now police say there aren't any ways to keep yourself from becoming a victim of cell phone spoofing. Investigators are not 100 percent sure how it's happening. They say the best thing you can do is watch your statements and report any strange calls to your cell phone provider.