T-Mobile's Scam ID and Scam Block make their way to MetroPCS customers

T-Mobile introduced two new scam-blocking features, Scam ID and Scam Block, for its customers back in April of this year. Today the Un-carrier has announced that these features will soon be making their way to its prepaid service, MetroPCS, starting Tuesday, July 25.

In case you’re unfamiliar, Scam ID and Scam Block are T-Mobile’s tools for fighting phone scammers. When a scam call makes its way to your phone, Scam ID will display a “Scam Likely” alert alongside the phone number that’s calling you. That is, of course, if you don’t have Scam Block enabled, which will make sure that any number that’s been marked as suspicious will not be able to connect at all.

If you’re a MetroPCS customer, Scam ID will be automatically enabled for you tomorrow. In order to take advantage of Scam Block, you will have to enable it manually by dialing #ONB# (#662#). Dialing #OFB# (#632#) will disable Scam Block if it was previously turned on, and dialing #STS# (#787#) will let you know whether it’s currently enabled or not.

Apparently these features have had a pretty impressive success rate since April. According to T-Mobile, the services have identified and blocked over 243 million scam calls since they rolled out. That’s certainly great news for those of us who have been bothered by these calls in the past. Plus, it looks like scam calls are getting worse over time, according to a recent survey from Truecaller. This survey notes that the average loss per scam call in 2017 is around $430 for each victim, up by 56% from the 2015 survey, which showed an average amount lost of $274.

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