What is Robocall?
- Robocallers : Automated, Prerecorded phone messages.
- Spammers : Unwanted callers that may be calling indiscriminately to a large number of recipients; sometimes includes callers to whom you've given consent to contact you.
- Fraud calls : An entity likely pretending to be someone they're not with malicious intent.
APPLICATION
AT&T has a free service, Call Protect, that’s designed to block fraudulent robocalls and likely spam risks before they reach you, and you won’t have to do anything besides install the software on your phone. Call Protect won’t completely stop telemarketer calls, but it will at least display a “nuisance warning” when you receive those. The service also makes it easy to permanently block callers, and you can build a personal block list.
There is also a Call Protect Plus service that offers caller ID, reverse number lookup, and the ability to block or send calls to voicemail by category. These added features cost $3.99 per month, but the main Call Protect service comes free as part of your plan.
Call Protect is also available to prepaid customers if they own an AT&T HD Voice-capable phone.
T-Mobile’s effort to combat annoying robocalls is called Scam Shield. The free-to-download Scam Shield app bundles all of T-Mobile’s various tools — Scam ID, Scam Block, and Caller ID — so you can easily configure whatever level of protection is right for you. By default, suspicious calls are always flagged. Enabling Scam Block will prevent many of them from ever ringing your phone. And T-Mobile’s Caller ID service will frequently show the information for whoever’s calling you, even if they’re not in your contacts.
You can always turn on Scam Block without the Scam Shield app. To do so, dial #662# from your T-Mobile phone. To disable it, just dial #632#.
Scam Shield goes beyond just blocking bad calls: you can also request a secondary “proxy” number that you can use in instances where you don’t want to share your private phone number. And if you find yourself hopelessly inundated, T-Mobile will let you change your actual number once per year for free.
For an added $4 per month per line, you can upgrade to Scam Shield Premium, which lets you “send entire categories of unwanted robocalls directly to voicemail, like telemarketers; create ‘always block’ lists; and get voicemail-to-text for at-a-glance access to your voicemails.” (Customers with Magenta Max plans get Scam Shield Premium for free.)
Verizon’s Call Filter service, free for postpaid lines, allows customers to “get alerts when a call is likely spam, report unsolicited numbers, and automatically block robocalls based on their preferred level of risk.”
For no charge, you can block up to five phone numbers that you want to prevent from contacting you. However, blocks expire after 90 days and aren’t very helpful against robocallers with numbers that change every day.
You can get more features, such as the ability to create a personal block list, for $2.99 a month per line. The Verizon Smart Family plan offers additional features, including parental controls and the ability to permanently block as many as ten numbers, for $4.99 a month.