Feb 8, 2013
I don't think the call is originating from Michigan. Most U.S. and Canadian phones cannot display caller IDs correctly if there are too many digits in the calling number. Let's assume the caller ID was not spoofed, that the number isn't just a VOIP number and that it isn't or a regular U.S. cell phone number. (You can get VOIP and cell phone numbers from just about area code in the country just by asking for one.)
The number might instead be an Indian number, since most caller ID displays in North America cannot display a complete Indian number. Also, many Indian numbers LOOK like regular North Amerian numbers (1-xxx-xxx-xxxx) except that they start with "91" instead of just "1". If you believe one of the reverse Indian number directories on the Internet (I happened to use http://www.searchpeopledirectory.com/international-reverse-phone/india/ , but there are others), the number is from an area just south of Nagpur, India and is assigned to a cell phone. It's unlikely that you will be able to pin the number down to a specific customer.
So probably your caller is spending whatever it takes to call North America on his cell phone and hoping to make a large profit by having his victims give him a credit, debit, or prepaid card number so that he can collect his extortion proceeds immediately.
A certain percentage of the time, it works, and it probably works well enough and often enough to keep the Asian scammers in business. You can also see the difficulties that the U.S. government would have enforcing the Do Not Call list on these people or in bringing them to justice, although it happens from time to time.
The moral is, if something sounds like extortion from an obviously foreign source, it probably is. Have fun with them if you want during their first call to you, but after that, block them, and don't try to call them back.