Do NOT download Scam Shield on your Phone: it's a T-Mobile scam!

I’m not a fan of scam shield but I don’t think it’s a scam, I don’t like that you can have incoming caller id but to really unlock that feature you need to pay a monthly fee.

I’m actually getting the same if not less spam calls since it was installed.

It’s not a scam.  It’s just utterly useless.  Worse than useless because it literally ONLY blocks legitimate calls.  It has access to your contacts.  For what reason, I do not know.  It doesn’t use that information to say, “Hey, that number is in this guy’s contacts.  AND it’s a favorite in the contacts.  AND it’s marked as family in the contacts.”  No, it just blocks my sister until I specifically “favorite” her in the app.  Since when does “favorite” mean “do not block”?  I don’t want to block my mother-in-law either, but I would NEVER “favorite” her!

This app literally blocks every single legitimate call from all competing cellular networks.  It doesn’t matter if they’re in your contacts, it doesn’t matter if they’re “favorites” there, the default is to block every single call from a competing network until you specifically unblock it, usually after several missed calls that you never even got a warning about.

But do you know what it does NOT block?  Calls from anonymous numbers coming from blocks of VOIP numbers which just give a city or state as the caller ID information.  That is literally EVERY SINGLE robocall I get.

So if I have this on I miss calls and don’t get back to friends, family, customers, etc. unless I’m frantically, manually checking it constantly to see of anyone from my contacts got blocked recently and call them back.  But I do still get ALL the scam calls I normally would, so there’s that.  So it does technically reduce my call volume.  It just does that by letting only scam calls through.

I had high hopes for this app, but it has never blocked a single scam call and it has never let through a single call from a competing cellular network.  Maybe there’s something nefarious going on there, maybe there isn’t.  Either way it has been months and the app is still the same unchanged garbage it was on release.

gramps28 wrote:

I’m not a fan of scam shield but I don’t think it’s a scam, I don’t like that you can have incoming caller id but to really unlock that feature you need to pay a monthly fee.

I’m actually getting the same if not less spam calls since it was installed.

same..didnt notice any jumps in spam calls..i did get a recorded call from one of our congressmen and it flagged it as possible spam..which hey...it was correct lol.

fireguy_6364 wrote:

gramps28 wrote:

I’m not a fan of scam shield but I don’t think it’s a scam, I don’t like that you can have incoming caller id but to really unlock that feature you need to pay a monthly fee.

I’m actually getting the same if not less spam calls since it was installed.

same..didnt notice any jumps in spam calls..i did get a recorded call from one of our congressmen and it flagged it as possible spam..which hey...it was correct lol.

I’m using the spam app too. I have’t been getting spam calls since and I got a TON of them before I installed it. That’s just been my experience though.

I’ve gotta chime in here:  I just ported over from Verizon last night.  Today is my first “full day” of TMO service.  When I saw the ScamShield app I thought:  “Oh, neat!  I HATE robocalls!”.

When I was with Verizon, I would probably get 1-2 robocalls/scams per day.  In the last 3 hours, since I’ve “Activated” ScamShield, I’ve received 15 robocalls - all scams claiming to be from Apple support - all coming from Manteca, CA - all with a (209) 858- prefix.

As I type this, another one just came in.  Exactly the same.

FYI - None of these have showed up as “potential scam”, and I’ve reported every single one of them through the “ScamShield” app, although I’m stopping that now.  It is a MAJOR hassle when you have more than one number to report - too many button presses dedicated to something you despise.

That has not been my experience.  I just looked through my logs back to Nov 1, as far back as the logs go and they tell a very different story.  23 probable scam numbers were not detected.  Some of those were definitely scams, all of them were probably scams.  3 calls with faked caller ID information were not detected, but were scams.  Unless, that is, Progressive calls me to thank me for my patronage to Marriott Hotels.  5 numbers actually in my contacts were detected as scam likely.  Only 5 calls not in my contacts and without caller ID information were detected as scam likely, and one of those wasn’t a scam.

It may be working for you, but that doesn’t mean it “works great” in general.  Bottom line, it has access to my contacts but STILL blocks numbers in my contacts as scam likely, it let through 26 numbers which were certainly or almost certainly scams, it detected 5 numbers which were definitely not scams and were in my contact list and it detected only 5 actually questionable calls, at least one of which was not a scam.  That’s well under 20% accuracy.

This isn’t my opinion.  It’s not a guess.  I’m not just saying it doesn’t work because I don’t like it.  My actual call logs show this program just doesn’t work.  It literally detected exactly as many numbers from my contacts as it did unknown numbers.  Just 10 detections in 3 months, fully half of them people I definitely know, while letting nearly 3x that many actual scam calls through.  If you don’t want to talk to your mother-in-law then yeah, it’s great.  Just get her a cell phone on a different cellular network and turn on Scam Shield and you’ll never even know she called unless you check the Scam Shield logs.  Otherwise, it’s just not that useful.

I have used scam shield since it came out and have YET to see any increase in spam or telemarketing calls. It works as it was designed. It even says on the main page that it might block some legit calls inadvertently but if time is taken to READ how to work the program it is easily avoided. Now for the OP to post that it is a scam from T-Mobile then all I have to say is they are an idiot. I used to get 10-15 calls a day for various scams, telemarketing, or just stupid stuff but this app reduced it by almost 90%  I have tried various other programs and it is comparable to those top rated apps as well but since it is from T-Mobile directly it makes it easier to investigate and report spoofed, crank call, or whatever to them. Win win

Scam Shield works great. It has an upgrade option for $4 month but the default works excellent.

@KirbyD it has blocked a lot of calls for me and works good for that. I had an issue today with a number blocked wrongly. I had to see how to unblock it. The application allows favoriting a blocked number without having to upgrade. Upgrading provides more functionality I don’t need. For a free app and free service it works good.