TelecomLive January-2019

Spam Calls Telecom LIVE January 2019 51 www.telecomlive.com spamming our users globally. According to the report, USA nd has dropped from the 2 highest country affected by spam calls to th the 8 compared to last year. Despite the decrease of spam calls, the US is still heavily affected by phone scams. One in every 10 American adults (10 pc) lost money from a phone scam in the past 12 months. With an average loss of $357 per victim, the result of these scams is projected to have cost 24.9 mn Americans approxi- mately $8.9 bn in total losses. The report also saw new market enter the list of spam calls like Spain, Canada, Costa Rica, Poland, Dominican Republic and Israel. Also, there has been a big increase of spam calls in European markets like Spain (100 pc), Greece (54.1 pc) and Italy (22.7 pc). However, Turkey has seen a decrease of spam calls (18 pc). In comparison to the last year report fewer African markets are in the Top 20 list: Kenya, Morocco, Egypt and Nigeria. South Africa is the only country in the list who has seen the spam calls has increased from 15 to 21 spam calls/months which is a 40 pc increase. ruecaller in its latest T insight report said that India is the second most spammed country in the world with the average ruecaller user receiving 37.5 spam calls per month (table). Brazil tops the list with an increase of 81 pc spam calls in a year. In 2018, Truecaller helped its user block and identify 17.7 bn spam calls and also identified 74.1 bn calls in general which means that close to every fourth call that Truecaller receives are spam calls, the report said. The biggest trend that the report saw was the entry of Latin American countries in top spam list and these countries are seeing the biggest increase of spam calls. Costa Rica being the country that has seen the highest increase in terms of percentage (330 pc). Although volume wise India receives the most spam calls in the world, the average spam call received per user has marginally dropped with 1.5 pc compared to last year. Looking into this year's break- down of call categorization in India there has been a substantial increase of spam calls coming from operators / telecom service provider's upselling various offers and balance reminders. Also, it seems like scam calls has more than doubled compared to last year from 3 pc to 7 pc, which is very alarming. The report also found that there are common categories that tie all these spam calls together. The biggest pattern was that operators across the world are the biggest spammers. Also, the telemarketing calls from financial services, debt collectors and insurance related matters are Spam Calls nd India continues to be the 2 most affected country: Truecaller Spam calls affected top 20 countries Sl Countries 2017 2018 1 Brazil 20.7 37.5 2 India 22.6 22.3 3 Chile 17.4 21.9 4 South Africa 15.0 21.0 5 Mexico 15.0 21.0 6 Peru 12.2 20.9 7 Costa Rica 4.3 18.5 8 USA 20.7 16.9 9 Greece 8.5 13.1 10 Spain 6.2 12.5 11 Italy 8.8 10.8 12 Canada 6.4 10.7 13 Colombia 5.8 10.4 14 Turkey 12.2 10.0 15 Poland 6.1 9.9 16 Indonesia 8.5 9.9 17 UK 8.9 9.2 18 Russia 6.7 8.9 19 Dominican Republic 4.5 8.9 20 Israel 7.6 8.5 Avg spam calls per user per month