For those who have been inundated with automatic calls and other scams, which means that anyone with a mobile phone is practically hard to imagine disappearing. Could T-Mobile’s “Scam Shield” really help?
T-Mobile and Sprint’s free subscriber service attacks the problem in several ways. There is a caller ID that can detect incoming scan calls and block them. The toll free number also changes once a year. But the most unusual wrinkle of all is the ability to create a proxy phone number.
Beginning July 24, subscribers to Magenta or Essentials phone plans will be able to create a second phone number for free while keeping their primary number private. So if you’re signing up for something on a website, for example, you can provide your proxy number instead of the primary one.
Being able to use that second number on your phone will not necessarily turn off automatic calls and scams. The second number is still your number, and calls keep coming. But it is an additional layer of protection.
If you know that the proxy number will only receive calls from a certain subset of callers, many of whom would rather not hear from you, it will be easier to delete those calls. Right? It remains to be seen how useful proxy numbers really are, but T-Mobile and Sprint subscribers can find the setup instructions here.
Different phone service providers have devised their own solutions to eliminate scams. AT&T has its own automatic fraud call blocker configured. Android also has a few similar things built in at the system level. There are third-party apps that can do it too (but that’s not a perfect solution). Even the FCC and FTC have stepped up the fight against automatic calls.
And why wouldn’t they? Spam phone calls that are often motivated by fraudulent reasons are an almost daily scourge in 2020 for anyone subscribing to a mobile phone plan. Scam Shield may not be a new idea, but perhaps proxy numbers will help in a way that other measures have not done so far.
If you’re a qualifying T-Mobile or Sprint subscriber, get your free secondary phone number on July 24.
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