Every now and then I get a call I can't take, my phone makes some noise, I glance at it (in case it's something urgent), see an incoming call from a number I don't recognize, and get back to it later when I don't have to focus on working or driving or whatever. Or sometimes I can and do answer but the end results are the same.
The caller's number is displayed while my phone is "ringing". No name, but not all numbers have names, so still quite ordinary. But later it's stored in the phone's history as something like "No Caller ID" or "Unknown" or "Private" or "Blocked", there's no way to recover the number, it's not even stored as a number in my phone, there's just no way to return the call.
Some callers - debt collectors, paparazzi, telemarketers, bounty hunters, abuse victims, and others - could mask their numbers deliberately for all sorts of ethical and unethical reasons. Yet I'm just not exciting enough to get any calls from these sorts of people. The calls I miss have so far turned out to be from weird fringe-service system glitches or from minimally-intercompatible long-distance network interfaces or from corporate offices hidden behind local virtual-telephony firewalls.
I'd like to know if there's any way to capture these numbers while they're actually being displayed on my phone, while the phone is still "ringing". I don't perceive this as a privacy-invading issue since anyone calling me with a masked number already has privacy issues - their number is already visible (even if briefly) and for all they know I'm waiting beside my phone at all times with a notepad or camera handy - if that is an issue then it's their issue, not mine.
Are there any settings or apps which (legally) capture these numbers?
