In the seemingly never-ending battle against phone scams and robocalls, there is finally new weapon for cell phone users. Long after scammers found ways to get around the federal Do Not Call registry, cell phone companies are finally taking action to help customers fend off the nuisance calls.
The newest service is T-Mobile's Scam ID and Scam Block, launched this month. "With T-Mobile Scam ID, your incoming call screen will actually alert you to a scam call by displaying 'scam likely' above the number," says Keith Haydon, Houston area Director of Network Engineering and Operations for T-Mobile. "Or (customers) can turn on Scam Block, and then T-Mobile will actually terminate that call before it ever reaches the customer."
Haydon tells KTRH that T-Mobile has been working on this technology for a while, but wanted to make sure they got it right before rolling it out. "We have this patent-pending technology that analyzes data, and it does it all in milliseconds," he says. "We have a continuously updated database of tens of thousands of known scammer numbers, and when a match is found, the T-Mobile network tags the incoming call and warns the customer that it's likely from a scammer."
T-Mobile isn't the only wireless carrier giving customers a leg up on scammers. AT&T launched a similar service called Call Protect in December.