T-Mobile says it blocked 21 billion scam calls in 2021

T-Mobile announced that scam call traffic more than doubled in 2021 with attempts hitting an average of 425 million calls every week, Bleeping Computer reported. It also said that it blocked over 21 billion of those calls for T-Mobile customers through December 2021 (over 700 calls per second) via its Scam Shield service.

Over half the 21 billion calls were related to fake vehicle warranty scams, while others impersonated Social Security employees, wireless providers, car insurance companies and package delivery. Scammers’ preferred locations were Texas, Florida, Arizona and Georgia, with the most targeted area code being the Dallas/Fort Worth area. 

T-Mobile launched its Scam Shield service last year, promising protection for all users regardless of their plan. You can choose to either screen calls as “scam likely”‘ when a call comes in, or block them altogether using a variety of methods, as T-Mobile details in its blog post. 

AT&T and Verizon also released stats for scam calls, with AT&T saying its ActiveArmor service has blocked over 16 billion suspicious calls since 2016. Verizon, meanwhile, revealed that around 78 million of its customers were protected from 13 billion unwanted calls by its Verizon Call Filter service.