"The Spam Via Call And Sms"-An Awarness Announcement to all of The People

                     "The Spam Via Call And Sms"-An Awarness Announcement to all of  The People

                                                                                                            By Raktim Bar

                                                                            


Spam calls are similar to email spam in the sense that they're a form of unwanted communication. Spam calls and text messages are distributed in bulk and in most cases unsolicited, which means they occur without any prior request"

N.B:Illegal spam calls are far more dangerous than they are a nuisance, simply because they have no regard for any government communication laws in the United States. Though the contents of the call may vary, they are all calling to steal something from you.

1.Why is this happening?

A:The phone has almost become an extended part of our body, and we use it to communicate with the rest of the world. The frightening part is we’re always accessible because of it, and this is something that spammers and scammers take advantage of.

In 2019 we(Truecaller) have been able to help our users block and identify 26 billion spam calls, which is an increase of 18% compared to last year. Furthermore, we have helped identify 116 billion unknown calls, which is a 56% increase compared to last year.

What are the trends we(Truecaller) are seeing?

A:Spam calls in Latin America have been increasing dramatically over the years. This year, the trend is even more clear. The countries that are seeing the biggest increase of spam calls are in Latin America. 5 out of the top 10 most affected markets are in that region.

Peru has seen a significant increase of spam calls. Users are now getting on average 30.9 spam calls a month, making Peru the 2nd most spammed country in the world.

The biggest increase of total spam calls comes from Indonesia. Last year Indonesia was ranked 16th, and this year the market jumped up to 3rd place, which makes it the biggest jump we have seen.

The country that has witnessed the biggest increase of spam calls in percentage is Lebanon. Users in the market have seen an increase of spam calls going from 2.8 average spam calls/user to 8.6 – that is a 208% increase in a year.

Although India has dropped to the 5th place (India used to be the top spammed country in the world,) spam calls have been increasing by 15% over the year. Another devastating fact we found during this year is that 1 out of 3 women in India receive sexual harassment or inappropriate calls and SMS on a regular basis.

The U.S. continues to be in the top 10 list of the most spammed countries in the world. The market saw a 7% increase of spam calls compared to last year, where it actually was decreasing. Earlier this year we conducted a study in the U.S. and found that phone scams caused Americans to lose 10.5 billion dollars in 2018, and nearly 1 in every 6 American adults falls victim to scam calls.

New markets to enter our list: UAE, Australia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Lebanon, Nigeria and Egypt.

Telco/operators are still the biggest spammers in the world, and scam calls are on the rise globally.

Who are the top 5 markets to receive the most scam calls in the world? Malaysia (63%), Australia (60%), Lebanon (49%), Canada (48%), South Africa (39%).

Who receives the most spam SMS in the world?
A:Our data shows that the top countries that receives the most spam SMS are in the emerging markets. The top three markets that are affected are in the African continent. Ethiopians receives the most spam SMS in the world, with the average of 119 spam SMS on a monthly basis.

In total Truecaller helped identify 8.6 billion spam SMS globally. 



1.Who are the top spam callers?

1.Brazil:Almost every other spam call in Brazil is being made from the operators and Internet service providers. In the past 12 months, calls from the operators have increased from 32% to 48%. These calls are typically seeking to provide special offers and upselling data plans amongst other services.Scam calls continue to be a big problem in Brazil. Two years ago, only 1% of all the top spammers were scam related, last year it went up to 20% – and this year it is up to 26%. One of the most common scams is the one ring scam or Wangiri scam. An unknown number (usually an international number) gives you a missed call and when you call back you are charged a hefty fee for calling that number. Another common scam call is the fake kidnap call where someone calls and pretends they will kidnap/have kidnapped someone from your family, and want you to buy them airtime or wire money.

2.Peru: As the graph shows, 1 in every 3 spam call in Peru is made by financial services that are looking to upsell credit cards and loans. A big chunk of the top spam calls that are terrorizing our users are from operators (24%) and outsourced telemarketing firms (26%) that promotes various offerings. Scam calls are also a big issue in Peru, where 1 out of 10 calls are scam related.
3.Indonesia:Calls from banks, financial services and insurance brokers continue to be the top spammers in Indonesia.The most alarming trend is that scam calls has more than doubled in the past year – going from 10% to 21%. In the recent months there has been a lot of unrest in the country, and we have received a lot of feedback from our users that scammers use this opportunity to scam people.One of the more common scams is the ‘one ring scam or Wangiri scam’. Another scam that has been going on lately is the fake hospital/injury call where someone would call and tell you that a family member or a friend is hospitalized and need immediate treatment, and you need to send them money in order for them to treat the patient.
4.Mexico:Scam related calls continue to be a big problem in Mexico (10%.) There are many prisons in Mexico that are well known in making a lot of fake kidnap calls to people.
5.India:In the past 2 years, India has dropped from being the country to receive the most spam calls in the world to the 5th position. But this does not mean spam calls are slowing down. On the contrary! Spam calls have been increasing with 15% in 2019.

6.South Africa:Scam calls continues to be a big threat for consumers in South Africa (39%). The most common scams are:

Tech support fraud, where someone pretends to call from your bank or a company saying that your account has been hijacked and needs your help to take control of it.One ring scam, an unknown number (usually an international number) gives you a missed call and when you call them back you get charged a hefty fee for calling to that number.Job offer scam, someone pretends to be a headhunter calling you to offer you a job but you need to pay a fee in order to get the job.
Also, insurance related calls have seen a big uptake in the country. Lately, there has been complaints about insurance companies calling people to upsell car insurance – or scammers calling pretending that your car has been towed away and that you need to pay a fee to get it back.

7.Chile:Although Chile has seen a marginal decrease of spam calls over the past 12 months, it continues to be one of the most spammed countries in the world.

8.United States O f America:Robocalls are talked about all over the U.S., and it’s no wonder. Apart from the media reporting and people complaining about this issue, we have seen a clear trend in our own data showing robocalls increasing dramatically. Comparing with last year, the number of robocalls has increased from 7% to a staggering 35% – which means that more than every third spam call a user gets is a robocall.

Earlier this year we also found that 43 million Americans were scammed over the phone – and 10.5 billion USD was lost to scammers in 2018. Read more here: https://truecaller.blog/2019/04/17/truecaller-insights-2019-us-spam-phone-scam-report/. Our data further shows that close to every third spam (32%) call you get is of fraudulent nature in the U.S.

9.Russia:Russia has moved up from the 17th most spammed country in the world to 9th place this year. The biggest spammers in Russia are from banks and financial services.

Another big trend is scam calls are a big portion of all the top spam calls in Russia. We have seen a pattern that scams calls have been tagged as companies/individuals pretending to call from banks trying to lure them to share sensitive information.

10.Colombia:Today, Colombia is the tenth most spammed country in the world. The majority of spam calls come from operators (39%) and financial services (29%,) followed by a big chunk of scam calls (22%.) In our data, we can see many of these fraudulent calls are ‘insurance related’ – meaning someone pretending to be from an insurance company and wanting to sign you up for something and charge you.

Also, Bogota has been ranked as the world’s worst city for sexual harassment (source: Plan International) – and during the past two years we have been receiving a lot of feedback from women saying that harassment calls has worsened in the country.


A Suggestion To all of You that I want to refer This Google Verified phone app : Download the app And please try to use it.We know that For some few years there happened many scam like "In Bank Case:A huge Amount of some users are deducted from their bank because of this spam calls.And also i want to suggest that please use Phonepe,Paytm,GooglePay,Freecharge etc apps with very carefully,when you use this bank related apps on that time try to close the another apps which is running in the background of your phone.Lastly i will advice you that Install only the Google Verified apps from Playstore,And in the given link download the call verifying app,which is Google verified app.
References:"A blog of Truecaller ","Wikipedia","Google".
Acknowledgement:Thanks to all of you for read this article.Be aware from now about this matter...
  WRITTEN BY:RAKTIM BAR 


                                                                                            

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