Mystery call? This free tool checks if it might be a scam number

There was a time when an unknown number called you, and your first move was to throw it into Google Search to do your own crude detective work. Modern phones are getting better at doing some of that work for you, with features like Google’s scam detection tools starting to take some of the guesswork out of suspicious calls. Still, plenty of mystery numbers slip through the net, and Malwarebytes now wants to give you a quick way to check them.

In a press release, Malwarebytes announced the launch of Scam Number Check, a reverse phone lookup tool designed to help you identify whether a phone number may be linked to scam activity. It’s free to use, and you don’t need to sign in or create an account.

The idea is as simple as it sounds: You enter a phone number, and the tool checks it using Malwarebytes’ threat intelligence engine. This draws on carrier data, contextual signals, known scam indicators, and millions of examples in its database. It isn’t trying to tell you who owns the number, but rather whether there are reasons to be wary of it.

You can also report numbers yourself, adding details such as what type of scam or robocall it seemed to be. That community-reporting element means the tool could become more useful as more people use it. Scammers can spoof numbers, so a clean result isn’t necessarily a green light, but the tool should still offer handy insight in many instances.

Malwarebytes is pitching the tool against a pretty grim backdrop. The company cites the FBI’s latest IC3 report, which found that Americans lost more than $21 billion to scams last year. It also says phone-call-assisted social engineering is among the top five scam types seen in its own Scam Guard data.