Protect yourself from scammers stealing your phone numbers

Scammers have been transferring phone numbers on T-Mobile (though we have heard some other cell carriers are affected too but these are instructions for T-Mobile) out to their own phones so they can exploit any 2-Factor Authentication you use via SMS. This is called number porting when a number is ported over to another account or carrier.

Often we have 2FA set-up for email, bank and other online accounts. If someone steals your phone number then they will be able to possibly hack into these online accounts.

You should enable a Port Validation PIN for your T-Mobile account.

  1. Dial 611
  2. Tell them, “I want to enable port locking for my account”
  3. You will need to give them a password of your choosing 6-15 digits (numbers only).

This will protect you from a scammer transferring any phone numbers in your account unless they know this special PIN. I suggest making it a long one as your will rarely have to use it anyway.

  • This DOES NOT change your T-Mobile account web login password.
  • This replaces the four digit PIN they used to ask for sometimes if you changed services.

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