You’re placing a legitimate international call. It’s part of your daily operations—maybe you’re trying to reach a customer, partner, or vendor but the call never gets through. It either goes straight to voicemail or is ignored altogether. Later, you find out it was marked as “Spam Likely.” Sound familiar?

This isn’t just frustrating—it’s bad for business. Legitimate calls that don’t get answered slow down conversations, create confusion, and can lead to missed opportunities or revenue. The reality is, many valid calls are being mislabeled due to how telecom systems evaluate trust across different networks. If you’ve ever asked, “why are my calls marked as spam?”, you’re not alone—and the answer lies in how networks manage caller authentication.

Let’s take a closer look at why this happens and what businesses can do about it.

Understanding Why Calls Are Labeled as Spam

At the core of the issue is how networks assess the credibility of incoming traffic. To help reduce fraud, countries like the United States and Canada have introduced a framework known as STIR/SHAKEN. This system applies a type of scoring—called attestation levels—to each call. Level A means the source of the call has been fully verified. Level B is partially verified, while Level C carries the least amount of information and assurance.

Unfortunately, international calls often fall into that last category. If your carrier or provider is not aligned with the standards required to assign higher attestation levels, your calls could be marked as Level C by default. To the receiving network, this makes your call look untrustworthy—regardless of its actual intent.

Many businesses using multi-carrier routing or VoIP services face this issue without even realizing it. They make calls through channels that haven’t been properly validated or attested, and the result is silence on the other end. This is a common example of international call mislabeling. Not because of what they said—but because the call never stood a chance.

Why Labels Alone Don’t Tell the Whole Story

The concept of tagging calls with A, B, or C labels is helpful for networks, but on its own, it doesn’t go far enough. A call might be tagged with a certain level, but without supporting data—such as validation logs or digital signatures—it’s just a surface-level measure.

Carriers and businesses need more context. Knowing the label is one thing. Understanding the full trail of a call—where it came from, how it moved through the network, and whether its identity was verified—is what truly helps prevent fraud and improve connection rates. Calls that are evaluated without this deeper context especially when routed through weak validation points run the risk of being judged too harshly or too quickly. That’s especially true in markets where fraud continues to disrupt the telecom ecosystem. And once a number starts being ignored, it becomes harder and harder to rebuild trust with end users.

Where 1Route Makes a Difference

At 1Route, we offer more than just tagging tools. Our call validation system checks calls in real time using an edge computing approach. This means calls are assessed as they arrive—no long delays or assumptions based on limited data. We provide attestation levels, but we also give carriers access to the details behind them.

These include validation logs that track the path of a call, digital signatures that verify its origin, and traffic behavior patterns that can flag suspicious activity. By giving networks and service providers the full picture, we help them make better decisions—not just faster ones.With 1Route, the goal isn’t just to check a box, it’s about delivering the full benefits of call validation. It’s to make sure every valid call gets the best chance to reach its destination without being misjudged by filters meant to stop something else entirely.

How to Know If Your Calls Are at Risk

If your team has noticed missed connections, lower answer rates, or rising complaints about calls not being received, mislabeling might be the cause. It’s worth taking a look at how your current provider is handling call validation and what information is being passed along to recipient networks.

Ask whether your outbound calls are being assigned accurate attestation levels. Find out if you have visibility into validation logs. And determine if your network setup supports proper verification without having to overhaul existing infrastructure.

These are questions that can uncover problems before they impact your customer relationships—or your bottom line.

Let’s Take a Look Together

At 1Route, we help businesses understand how their calls are being treated. If you’re unsure about what’s happening to your international traffic—or you’ve seen too many red buttons lately—we’re here to help.

Schedule a quick call audit with our team to see where things stand. We’ll help you identify what’s working, what isn’t, and how to make sure your calls get through the first time.

Because communication matters. And so does the trust behind it.