T-Mobile claims that its free Scam Shield robocall and scam prevention service stopped 21 billion scam, spam, and nuisance robocalls this year, equating to an average of 1.8 billion scam calls detected or blocked every month. Moreover, based on statistics until early December 2021, the carrier estimates that scam call traffic has hit an all-time high, increasing by almost 116 percent from 2020 to 425 million scam call attempts each week.
Last year, while announcing the Scam Shield service, T-Mobile said that it would be able to detect or prevent nearly 12 billion scam calls in 2019 and that over 30 million Americans would fall victim to a phone scam within a year.
“T-Mobile Scam Shield has identified or blocked over 21 BILLION calls for T-Mobile and Metro by T-Mobile customers through early December 2021,” the company disclosed in its 2021 Scam and Robocall Report.
“The lowest measured month for scam traffic was January 2021, identifying 1.1 billion calls as Scam Likely. By November, volume had increased exponentially, and T-Mobile identified double the January traffic at 2.5 billion calls as Scam Likely.”
Over half of these 21 billion calls were tied to phony automobile warranty frauds, with other top scam efforts posing as the Social Security Office (10%), wireless provider (9%), car insurance company (6%), or package delivery (6%). Texans, Floridians, Arizonans, and Georgians were the scammers’ top targets in 2021, with individuals in the Dallas/Fort Worth area code being the most targeted.
In a similar story, AT&T said that its AT&T ActiveArmor service has stopped or detected more than 16 billion spam calls since 2016, with 17 million spam calls found each day in 2020 alone after analyzing billions of calls for robocall patterns. In June, Verizon said that the Verizon Call Filter had saved 78 million Verizon customers from over 13 billion unsolicited calls.
Customers on AT&T can acquire ActiveArmor by following the steps found here, while Verizon customers may learn more about getting and employing Call Filter by visiting this page.
