T-Mobile’s new Caller Verified feature offers more protection from scammers and spammers

Carrier T-Mobile on Thursday announced a new feature, Caller Verified, which promises to offer additional, better protections from scammers and spammers than its existing tools.

Caller Verified is free for all T-Mobile customers.

The feature is based on the STIR and SHAKEN standards, which Apple does not currently use but could roll out in iOS 13 later this year.

Anti-spam apps that simply blacklist known scam numbers are not the ideal solution to combat phone scams because they tend to miss legitimate numbers that have been spoofed. With Caller Verified, you can rest assured that the incoming phone number you see has been verified as authentic, at least that’s what T-Mobile is claiming.

This technology has made its debut on Samsung’s Galaxy Note 9 via a free software update which puts a “Caller Verified” label on the call screen when T-Mobile has verified that the call is authentic and not intercepted by scammers and spammers. It’s scheduled to hit more smartphones later this year, T-Mobile said, without mentioning iPhone.

T-Mobile on its implementation of STIR and SHAKEN:

The STIR and SHAKEN standards standards combat illegal caller ID spoofing, which occurs when scammers temporarily hijack a phone number to match the area code and 3-digit prefix of the person they are targeting, making the incoming call look familiar.

T-Mobile was first in the industry to announce readiness for STIR/SHAKEN in November 2018, and today, the Un-carrier became the first in the industry to launch caller verification using the STIR/SHAKEN standards. Once other wireless providers implement STIR/SHAKEN, Caller Verified will work on calls made across networks.

It’s estimated that half of US mobile traffic will be scam calls this year. The new tool enhances T-Mobile’s existing anti-spam measures like Scam ID, Scam Block and Name ID.