Is there a law against this?

Yes, there are laws.

Spoofing numbers is easy. The local number may be displaying, it the call could be from anywhere in the world.

The phone companies haver no method to stop it, and the government can’t force them to.

I totally agree with @elbanditoroso .
(As of this writing, I have received two calls from myself.)

There have been cases here in the UK of fraudsters calling customers to say their bank account has been compromised and advising them to transfer money to a safe account. To confirm the call is genuine they ask the customer to check the calling number which appears genuine as it is that bank’s fraud reporting number. Of course, it isn’t really and the number has been spoofed.

This is fraud and there are penalties for fraud but the difficulty is in catching the perpetrators who may operate from the other side of the world. I get the feeling that these cybercrimes are increasing exponentially with no serious attempt being made to deal with them.

I like the ones from the IRS saying that there has been a warrant issued fore fraud. If I disappear from this site, maybe the calls were real.

How can you not know the answers to these three questions?

“Phone companies haver no method to stop it” Citation needed. I think it would be straightforward for phone companies to assure the caller ID is genuine if they cared.

“and the government can’t force them to” Why not? If it was because it’s not possible, that’s reasonable, but I’m pretty sure it’s possible.

@dabbler please do some research. I’m not going to do it for you.

Yes. It’s called spoofing and should be reported to the FTC via their website.

@elbanditoroso
Gee, you obviously haven’t done any research, what are you nagging me about?
There’s a ton of information out there how individuals can detect fake IDs. If individuals can do it, so can phone companies don’t you think ?

My answer to this problem is I don’t answer the phone if I don’t recognize the number or have the number saved as someone I know. If it’s important or if it’s a friend, they’ll leave a voicemail. No voicemail, oh well, no call back.