Verizon has protected you from 20 billion spam calls

It's an unknown number—could it be the new job you applied to last week? Nervously, you answer the phone, and a strange voice greets you. After about 10 seconds, you realize it's a pre-recorded message: nothing but a spam call. Annoyed, you slam down the phone, tell your family it was only another stupid bot, and try to get on with the mashed potatoes which have already gone cold.

Does the above scenario sound familiar? If not, and you have Verizon as your carrier, you may have to thank them for it: the company has announced it has so far protected its 80 million total users from over 20 billion scam calls. 

This adds up to about two hundred fifty scam calls per person; or enough to interrupt every single week night meal for a year straight. That's a lot of spam calls.

Verizon provided this, along with further information, in a news post on its website yesterday. The company еxplained at length the role of its free Call Filter app, which is an extra functionality it offers to shield users as much as possible from unwanted calls.

Verizon also underlined that users who want extra features for maximal caller screening, can also sign up for Call Filter Plus. This account, available on the Call Filter app, costs only $2.99, and offers Caller Name ID, Spam LookUp, Personal Block List and a Spam Risk Meter.  

These are probably the best nifty features anyone might useful in keeping themselves protected from spam calls. The Spam Risk Meter keeps you updated in real time about what your risk level is of experiencing known spam calls. 

Both the free and paid version of Call Filter offer a Neighborhood filter, which protects specifically against neighbor spoofing. This happens when a spammer calls you and uses your own area code—and often the same first three digits as your number—to try to get you to answer, thinking it could be a neighbor.

Verizon also introduced a new anti-spam feature for customers of Fios Digital Voice, Verizon's fully fiber-optic network. Fios Digital Voice users now enjoy improved Caller ID, which displays "V" for "Verified" next to a caller's name right on the phone screen, as well as the call log afterwards. That is to say, a caller is verified "when the caller’s telephone provider has confirmed that the call is coming from an authentic telephone number that has not been spoofed."

Even with all of these tools in place to fight spam, Verizon says that it will continue to develop its technology to eliminate as many unwanted calls as possible from happening in the future. “Our work is far from done," stated Manon Brouillette, CEO of Verizon Consumer Group. "With innovative technology, we’ll continue to fight the fight against these bad actors to help the cause for our customers."