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T-Mobile Rolls Out Tools to Help Customers Avoid Scam Phone Calls

imlynxy said:
You can download app "call protect" on app store.
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To temporarily block a number for 30 days?
No thanks.

Quote:
"
Description
AT&T Call Protect, available for iPhone 6 and above, lets you manage your incoming calls with more control over nuisance calls.

AT&T Call Protect uses the power of the AT&T network to automatically block fraud calls and warn about suspected spam calls in HD Voice coverage areas. In addition, temporary call blocking is available for blocking unwanted calls for 30 days at a time. It is available to AT&T consumer and business (except Government) postpaid wireless customers that are eligible for and set up with AT&T HD Voice. Smartphones sold by other carriers may not be eligible."
 
dampfnudel said:
I'm sure they're hastily coming up with something as I type this. They may be first in reliability (barely in some places), first in gouging their customers, but anything but first when it comes to everything else.
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Verizon only does stuff when they are forced to do it, and you usually end up paying it somewhere else they sneak a charge in. Their own caller ID service sucks, and it's 2.99/month. If someone from a mobile phone calls you only see "wireless caller" on the screen, no number, no caller id, no name, it's a complete joke. Come to think of it Verizon will not want to cannibalize it's own caller id service so I'll bet they don't even come up with something like this, or most likely they will charge for it.
 
armandxp said:
Was with ATT for 10 years. Switched in Feb. in FL and couldn't be happier. I only have one line and was paying upwards of $130 with grandfathered unlimited data, iPhone subsidy, and that was going up another $5 a month in March. Now paying $96 with unlimited and iPhone subsidy. 56 for plan and 30 a month for phone. Couldn't be happier. Free stuff every Tuesday....ATT wouldn't budge on my bill going up again for the 3rd time in less than two years. BYE!!! got 20% off my plan for life.....They paid off my old subsidy of $720, gave me another $110 off iPhone in rebate....John L. is blowing up the phone business and everyone is changing their plans
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Yeah, and did you know if you stay under 2GB per line each month, you get $10/per line off your bill? Crazy. My wife and grandparents don't use much data, so my bill is likely to be around $80/mo for the three lines. Like you with AT&T, Verizon didn't try to keep me either. Best they could do was lower my bill $5/mo for half the data. I literally laughed at them.
 
tigres said:
To temporarily block a number for 30 days?
No thanks.

Quote:
"
Description
AT&T Call Protect, available for iPhone 6 and above, lets you manage your incoming calls with more control over nuisance calls.

AT&T Call Protect uses the power of the AT&T network to automatically block fraud calls and warn about suspected spam calls in HD Voice coverage areas. In addition, temporary call blocking is available for blocking unwanted calls for 30 days at a time. It is available to AT&T consumer and business (except Government) postpaid wireless customers that are eligible for and set up with AT&T HD Voice. Smartphones sold by other carriers may not be eligible."
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I didn't sell you anything, sorry. May be T-mobile gives you better deal.
 
tigres said:
To temporarily block a number for 30 days?
No thanks.
Click to expand...

You should actually read the whole thing. Temporary call blocking is an additional feature, it is separate from scam blocking and warnings. Additionally, it means 30 days at a time. You just have to renew the block every 30 days.

Wowereit said:
Is this really such a big problem in the US?
I barely get any scam calls in Germany. More like once a year.
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Because your call costs are 20x ours. Wholesale costs are around 1/10 of a cent per minute to make a call to a cell phone in the US. Your calling-party-pays system is set at 1.8 cents/min, hence the difference.
 
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mgipe said:
A huge problem. I get 20 scam calls for every legit call.
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Sounds like u'r getting the short end of the stick .

sevimli said:
WTF? Why would I need to pay someone to monitor my phone 7/24?????
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You pay for these services because they will do a much better job than the average user can.

There is no such thing as a free lunch. You want better filtering, u pay for it
 
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dannyyankou said:
No need to use services like this. If I get a call from a strange number, I dismiss it. If the call is important, they'll leave a voicemail.
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I will be honest with you, that's not really the attitude to have. The issue is, is that it's intrusive and invading privacy when scammers contact you regardless if you answer your phone or not. And just because you don't answer your phone, doesn't mean They necessarily can't obtain your information in any other manner. Another forum member already mentioned how a scammer called him and already had part of his personal information, when he never gave his information out before. Part of me thinks that when I read posts like yours, you're ignorant of how serious of a problem this really is.

So in theory, your essentially you're excepting the fact that if a solicitor comes to your door and tries to scam you, you're saying you just will not answer your door. Yet, soliciting isn't necessarily always legal and can be a violation in some form or another for ordinance/privacy.

You have to understand, the scammers have nothing to lose and everything to gain. They are relentless and they're not going stop until they defraud someone of their Finances.

The Mindset You should Have is supporting your carrier/phone manufacturer to combat these issues and ultimately put up some resistance against this persistent issue. It's not necessarily about utilizing the services. Scam calls will always exist in some form or another and cannot be defeated, but collaborative effort is needed.
 
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Google has this with GoogleVoice, it works great, maybe better since the suspected SPAM call never makes it to your phone, goes directly in the SPAM folder....
 
OldSchoolMacGuy said:
Read the user agreement. It says they can share the information with "marketing partners" which means sell to other companies for marketing use.
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No. You're incorrect. Even so, you have to consent through writing and online agreements for any personal information to be used. Nor did I see the term "Marketing partners."

There is De-Identified information they market, but it does NOT include your personal information, which is conducted under YOUR User consent.

Quoted verbatim from T-Mobiles Privacy/Policy Page:

"We do not sell, license, rent, or otherwise provide your Personal Information to unaffiliated third-parties (parties outside the T-Mobile corporate family) to market their services or products to you without your consent."


https://www.t-mobile.com/company/website/privacypolicy.aspx


 
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konqerror said:
How so? AT&T got a similar service 3 months ago. In fact, this service has a flaw. AT&T's version lets you see the blocked calls in an app, with optional notifications, so you can unblock false positives. Is there something similar here?
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Out of curiosity, why are you definitely stating TM's service is flawed, and then asking if it indeed is flawed? This post is a good example of how MR comments can't be taken seriously and/or are generally biased.
 
dannyyankou said:
No need to use services like this. If I get a call from a strange number, I dismiss it. If the call is important, they'll leave a voicemail.
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A lot of people don't like the annoyance of their phone ringing from a scammer or sales person. Also, some people don't have everyone they know in their address book. Even if they did, sometimes important calls come from numbers you don't know. For example, our vet just called with a message about a prescription for the dog from a number that wasn't the main number they give out. I called back, but then needed to wait until they pulled up that information again. Not a big deal, but it was annoying.
 
cerote said:
Would be nice. But most tend to block some actual places people use.

Nowadays the scams just use fake numbers. I don't ever answer a number with same area code and first 3 digits of my number. (I guess only really applies to people in larger cities).
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or do like I do. if I don't recognize the number I don't answer. if they leave a message and its someone legit I'll call back.
 
charlituna said:
or do like I do. if I don't recognize the number I don't answer. if they leave a message and its someone legit I'll call back.
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I do that with personal phone. For my work cell I have to answer calls from all over US so I only not answer same area code and first three digits.
 
I don't see this working, but I wanna believe. I'm at a point where I stopped answering the phone unless I recognize the number or have it as a contact, especially from out of state. I receive so so many scam calls, it's unbelievable.
 
Derekuda said:
Yeah.....NO thanks. My Samsung GS7 has spam call blocking/reporting built right into it. It identifies spam calls as they ring and i just hit the block/report button. Nice little feature from Samsung.
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Nice little feature from Google.
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Fixed that for you.
That's actually a core function of Android 6.0 Marshmallow and newer.
But I do give props to Sammy for not stripping the function from their phones like they have done with many other core features in the past. They seem to be getting a lot better at giving customers what they want rather than something unique.
 
elcrian said:
I don't see this working, but I wanna believe. I'm at a point where I stopped answering the phone unless I recognize the number or have it as a contact, especially from out of state. I receive so so many scam calls, it's unbelievable.
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Me too!
I'm sure mine is due to all the data breaches I've been involved in. {sigh}
 
peterh988 said:
Wish Apple would introduce a system to deal with No Caller ID. Perhaps a way to block it, or have it send out a "This user does not accept unidentified calls" or something similar.
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Although I haven't had many chances to try T-Mobile's thing to avoid scam callers, it has had a 100% success rate... with just 3 calls thus far.

The unknown number is a bit of an odd one... I don't know if businesses can put themselves on this, but I got a call from a doctor's office with this as the ID. I suspect the person calling me was doing so on her own, private cell phone (as sometimes the main line's tied up)? Either way, I still would've expected something to show up as the number. Luckily, I checked the voice mail, and got notified that I needed to reschedule my upcoming appointment.
 
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