SCAMMERS

A Really Neat New Phone Feature That Probably Isn’t

Your pharmacy will almost certainly be honest

Oh, sure, that will work. Photo of and by author

I just read about an exciting new feature available to AT&T Android phone customers. It’s so neat! When a business calls one of these customers, it can add a message that tells them why they are calling. Your pharmacy can say “Prescription ready”, your repair shop can say your car is ready to be picked up, your doctor can say, “Really bad news, sorry”, and so on.

Or for me, my bank can call to tell me I dropped a credit card in their ATM vestibule, but an honest customer turned it in. Or was that a thief trying to lure me somewhere where he could mug me? It turned out to be the bank, and the funny thing is I knew I had dropped a card while at the ATM, but I didn’t notice that I had dropped two, so I only picked up one. Why don’t I have those Rain Man counting skills?

The really nice thing is that this works in conjunction with the STIR/SHAKEN protocol that stops spam/scam calls dead in their zippy little tracks. In case you’ve forgotten, that dooly-whopper has been working hard since 2021. I haven’t had a spam call since then (Editors note: the author is surely fibbing about that).

So, if a would-be scammer puts an “Emergency call from FBI” on his call, it won’t get…