There’s fewer and fewer reasons for anyone to tie themselves to a postpaid monthly cell contract. It used to be that postpaid customers got all the good perks, better pricing, and higher-tier plans, but that just isn’t true any more.
This week’s example: MetroPCS, T-Mobile’s prepaid arm, will roll out spam call identification and blocking services that T-Mobile currently offers to its postpaid customers. The features — which, by the way, are identical to anti-spam features Verizon charges $3 for — will be free for all MetroPCS customers starting tomorrow.
There are two slightly different anti-spam features included for all MetroPCS customers. The first, called Scam ID, will be enabled by default for all MetroPCS customers. It uses a known list of scammers and compares incoming calls. It won’t block incoming calls that it thinks are spam, but it will show a “Scam Likely” messsage, along with the number, on your handset.
The second feature is opt-in only, and it does block likely scam calls. It’s called Scam Block, and it uses the same list of known scammers to screen incoming calls. The only difference is that the likely scam calls never make it to your phone, so there’s a chance you’ll miss a real call due to a false positive. To turn on Scam Block, MetroPCS “can dial #ONB# (#662#) or, to turn it off, dial #OFB# (#632#). To check whether Scam Block is on or off, customers can dial #STS# (#787#).”
