T-Mobile Introduces ‘Caller Verified’ Tool to Protect Against Spam Calls on the Galaxy Note 9

BY Evan Selleck

Published 10 Jan 2019

If you are a T-Mobile subscriber and happen to own the Samsung Galaxy Note 9, there’s a new T-Mobile-approved feature being introduced today.

The magenta un-carrier calls it “Caller Verified”, and it’s a tool that’s meant to drastically reduce the amount of spam calls you might receive on a semi-regular basis. The idea is to stop scammers from using spoofed phone numbers (the ones that look legitimate, but are most definitely not), and therefore protect its subscribers a bit more. The new tool is based on the SHAKEN and STIR standards, which are in place to fight against scam phone calls.

“Caller Verified is T-Mobile’s implementation of the STIR and SHAKEN standards. These 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.”

If you own the Galaxy Note 9, you should start to see the “Caller Verified” wording appear when you get an incoming call. This will tell you that it’s been vetted on the carrier’s side, which should mean you won’t get a spoofed call that you might answer by mistake. T-Mobile says the feature will be rolling out to other devices in the future, but those handsets aren’t named specifically, nor is there any date to circle on the calendar just yet.

This is a nice addition for T-Mobile subscribers, and is just one more in a long, growing list for anti-scam and anti-spam protection for the magenta un-carrier’s customers. This new addition joins “Name ID”,” Scam Block”, and “Scam ID”.

[via T-Mobile]