Google Voice Gets Suspected Spam Call Alerts: Here's How To Turn Them On

Google Voice will now help users stay protected against spam and fraud calls with a new spam filtering feature added to the virtual phone number service. When a potential spammer calls your Google Voice number, you will see a label reading "Suspected spam caller." Spam calls are an annoyance for most of us these days, so much so that many smartphone users have taken to outright ignoring calls coming from unrecognized numbers.

For those who do pick up calls from numbers they don't recognize, these spam calls can go beyond being a mere annoyance and result in significant financial losses. In 2021, as many as 60 million Americans were duped by spam callers, with losses amounting to almost $30 billion. According to the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), more than 33 million scam robocalls were made every day in 2021. The problem has become so bad that the FCC and mobile carriers have implemented new initiatives to combat spam calls, and now it seems we can add Google Voice to that list.

Although the Federal Trade Commission offers you the option to add your number to a nationwide Do Not Call registry, this is usually not enough to deter spam callers, especially those calling you with the intention of extorting money. This is where Google Voice's spam detection feature can help identify bogus callers.

The new suspected spam call alerts will be automatically activated, but it will be at the user's discretion whether to pick up the call or ignore it. Google, however, notes that Voice's spam filter will need to be set to "Off" in order for spam call alerts to work. With spam filtering turned on, users won't even see incoming spam calls, as those will automatically be sent to voicemail. If you'd rather turn the spam filter off so you can see these suspected spam call alerts, you can do so by going into Settings > Security > Filter Spam in the Google Voice app. 

In case you find a particular call wrongfully marked as spam, you can flag the number as "Not spam" from the spam folder. Just as well, you can confirm suspected spam calls too, in which case all future calls from that number will be immediately sent to voicemail. The feature is a server-side update and will roll out to Google Voice users gradually over the next 15 days, so keep an eye out for it to land in the coming weeks.