South Africa ranks as the fourth most spammed country in the world… but we have a way to help you avoid those irritating calls!
Remember the days when the phone rang and you didn’t know who it was? Maybe it was the company you always dreamt of working for, or the hospital trying to tell you someone close to you got sick, or maybe just a stubborn guy trying to sell you something.
Truecaller was born out of this uncertainty. They wanted to make it possible for you to know who’s trying to contact you, and also tell you when not to pick up. The company wanted to remove all uncertainty and separate the important stuff from the noise.
Hundreds of millions of users later, Truecaller can gladly say those days of uncertainty are over.
“Today we see a new world. Something bigger than just knowing phone numbers. Technology making life easier is great, but infinite connectivity is creating infinite complexity, putting up new forms of trust barriers. And mutual trust is the very foundation for friendship, business relationships or for just being a good neighbour.
We are committed to building that trust everywhere by making communication safe and efficient. No matter if it’s in the beginning of a call, in the middle of a transaction or at the end of a signature.”
In 2018 alone, Truecaller has helped users block and identify 17.7 billion spam calls including the identity of 74.1 billion calls. This means that close to every fourth call that the app users receive are spam calls.
Truecaller recently released findings from its annual “Insights Report”, a look into the top 20 countries affected by spam calls in 2018.
“Last year we released our first Truecaller Insights on top spam-plagued countries around the world, this year we are taking a deeper look into this rising problem!”
Nuisance and unsolicited calls are on the rise around the globe, with the Insights Report revealing that within large markets such as Brazil, and India, the average Truecaller user receives more than 22 spam calls each month.
South Africans are not far behind and are some of the most spammed in the world, the insights study has revealed that the 5.3 million Truecaller app users receive a total of 21 spam calls monthly. This puts South Africa as the fourth most-spammed country, a staggering 71.4% increase in spam compared to findings from last year.
In comparison to last year’s data, fewer African markets are now sitting in the Top 20 list, South Africa is the only country that has topped the list again with an increase in overall spam related calls.
Digging deeper into the bigger markets, Truecaller found common categories that tie all these spam calls together. The most prominent pattern seen was that operators across the world are the biggest spammers. Another pattern noted was that telemarketing calls from financial services, debt collectors and insurance related matters are spamming our users globally.
A closer look at spam calls in South Africa:
Truecaller has identified and blocked 297 million spam calls in South Africa to date and has identified 12.4% of all calls received in the market as spam.
Last years study revealed that a only 1% of calls were marked as scam-related, this year almost half (49%) of all top spam calls were scam related. Scams include tech support fraud, where someone pretends to call from your bank or company informing you that your account has been hijacked and needs your help to take control of it; the 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 back; the job offer scam, someone pretending to be a headhunter calling you to offer you a job but you need to pay a fee in order to be hired. Telemarketing is still a persistent problem in South Africa, that accounts to 38% of all top spam calls in the country.
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