Are Your Calls Labeled Spam or Scam on Mobile Phones? How to Check.

Mutare, Inc. ’s Voice Traffic Filter is used by businesses to secure their voice network from unwanted inbound calls. As part of our consulting practice on voice traffic filtering I am often asked by our clients if we can help them with outbound call reputation. This often happens when the company discovers that their phone calls are being labeled by mobile carriers as spam. The labels that show up on the smartphone display may include:

• Fraud Alert
• Scam
• Scam Likely
• Nuisance Caller

This article outlines how you can check your business number reputation yourself in a few steps. It also outlines how you can get monitoring services from Mutare if you the do-it-yourself route is too labor intensive.

What You Will Need

From each phone number you want to check, you will need to place three test calls to three different mobile phones on different wireless carriers. You will need three smartphones on the following networks:

• AT&T
• T-Mobile
• Verizon

The reason you need three phones from different wireless carriers is that each wireless carrier uses a different number analytics vendor for call labeling. The top three number analytics vendors are:

• Hiya for AT&T
• First Orion for T-Mobile
• Transaction Network Services (TNS) for Verizon

Because Hiya Inc. , First Orion , and TNS use different algorithms the resulting labeling of your number may be different on each. For example, one service may label your call as trusted, while another service may label it as spam.

Before You Test

1. Be sure the phone number you are testing is not in the contacts on the mobile phones you will be calling, as this will override the carrier display
2. Be sure the mobile phones are not running third party anti-spam apps from Nomorobo , RoboKiller , or YouMail Inc. for the test as these apps use a proprietary algorithm to label call and you will not know if the call label is coming from the mobile carrier or the local app on the phone.
3. I will cover how to check your number reputation against these popular apps at the end of the article.

Place the Test Calls and Note the Results

From the number you want to check, place three test calls. Place one test call to each cell phone. When the cell phone rings note what shows up on the display. There are three possible outcomes to the test on each cell phone:

• The cell phone rings, and the display is labeled correctly. ?Nice work! Your phone number reputation is good. You will likely want to repeat the test periodically to monitor the reputation on an ongoing basis as the reputation can change.
• The cell phone rings but the call is mislabeled as spam or a scam.
• The cell phone doesn’t ring. This means your phone number is being blocked.

How to Correct Mislabeling or Blocking with Analytics Providers

If your call was mislabeled or blocked on one or more wireless carriers, you will need to submit a report using the public complaint process for that wireless carrier’s vendor:

·????????Hiya for AT&T

·????????First Orion for T-Mobile

·????????TNS for Verizon

The do-it-yourself process is free but can be time consuming and may take weeks to sort out. You may be better off working with a number reputation vendor. For a referral to reputation service, you can contact Mutare and we can introduce you to one of our partners.

Mobile Call Reputation Apps

While the wireless carriers will label calls, your mobile phone will still ring and interrupt you with spam. ?Many consumers don’t want their phones to ring at all with annoying spam calls. That is where anti-spam mobile apps come into play. The three most popular mobile app anti-spam applications are:

1. Nomorobo
2. RoboKiller
3. YouMail

These mobile apps are very popular with consumers and are used to block robocalls and nuisance calls to mobile phones. They work very well. But like the reputation vendors used by mobile carriers, your business phone numbers can be identified as spam.

Mutare can check your phone numbers against nine different databases sources and let you know if your numbers are being block listed or labeled as spam. You can engage us for a one-time lookup for your business numbers or we subscribe to our service for ongoing number reputation monitoring. ?Note Mutare will only monitor your number reputation we do not offer reputation management services to vet your company or cure a mislabeled number. We can, however, refer you to one of our partners that specialize in phone number reputation management and even help you with branded caller ID.

The above referenced vendors cover the “80/20” rule. Eighty percent of your mobile caller ID labeling issues will be solved with the three analytics firms and three mobile app firms.

Since do it yourself is very labor intensive, consider outsourcing to a professional organization that specializes in number reputation. Your brand is the sum of all impressions made so make each one count. Once again Mutare can provide with referrals to reputable companies that practice the “Know Your Customer” vetting framework and can provide ongoing number reputation management.

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