South Africa has the dubious distinction of being among one of the most spammed countries in the world.
Truecaller has released findings from its Truecaller Insights report, which highlights that nuisance and unsolicited calls continue to be on the rise around the globe.
Last year, Brazil overtook India as the most spammed country in the world and, as this year’s data shows, is still on top.
South Africa is not far behind and is still ranking in as one of the most spammed countries in the world. The insights study has revealed that the 1,7-million daily active Truecaller app users receive a total of 25 spam calls monthly, a 20% increase from last year.
This year Truecaller also looked at the trends of spam SMS around the world and have been able to pinpoint the top 20 countries that receive the most spam.
The data shows that the top countries receiving the most spam via SMS are the emerging markets.
Ethiopians are receiving the highest number of spam SMS in the world, with an average of 119 spam SMS every month.
South Africans come in second with a shocking average of 114 spam SMS received every month – on average a South African receives around four spam SMSs each day.
In 2019, Truecaller helped identify 8,6-billion spam SMS globally.
Scam calls continue 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 have been complaints about insurance companies calling people to upsell car insurance; or scammers calling and pretending that your car has been towed away and that you need to pay a fee to get it back.
The top five markets, receiving the most scam-related calls in the world are Malaysia (63%), Australia (60%), Lebanon (49%), Canada (48%) and South Africa (39%).
Digging deeper into the bigger markets, Truecaller found that the most prominent pattern seen around the world is that operators are the biggest spammers. Another pattern noted was that scam calls is on the rise globally, and spam calls from financial services is increasing.
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. Five 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 second most-spammed country in the world.
The biggest increase of total spam calls comes from Indonesia. Last year Indonesia was ranked sixteenth, and this year the market jumped up to third 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 fifth 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 one out of three women in India receive sexual harassment or inappropriate calls and SMS on a regular basis.
The US 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, were it actually was decreasing.
Earlier this year a study in the US found that phone scams caused Americans to lose $10,5-billion in 2018, and nearly one in every six American adults falls victim to scam calls.