India Ranks Second On The Top 20 Countries Affected By Spam Calls In 2018

According to a report from Truecaller, Brazil has taken India’s position as the most country affected by spam calls in 2018. In India, 6.1 percent of the total calls Indian received were spam calls. This number means that one Indian user received an average of 22.3 spam calls a month, which is 1.5 percent lower than 2017.

In terms of spam call classification, with 91 percent calls were for promotion and reminders of balance, telecom service providers and operator remain their position to be the top spammers. It is still the same compared to last year with 31 million spam calls were initiated by one telecom operator.

Telemarketers accounted for 2 percent of the spam calls. Approximately 7 percent of the spam calls are from scammers. This percentage has doubled compared to 3 percent in 2017. Truecaller views this as extremely alarming. You should be cautious when sharing your private data with others as this might lead to impersonation or financial loss. Overall, even though spam calls still greatly affect Indian users, there still has been a decrease in spam calls, which accounted for 1.5 percent.

In average, a Brazilian user received approximately 37.5 spam calls each month. Therefore, the average spam calls each user received saw an 81 percent increase than last year. Brazil ranks first in the chart regarding scam calls with 20 percent, which is 19 percent higher than last year. Most of these calls are about threats on electricity disconnection and abductions. Brazilians also receive prank calls for numerous purposes from jokes to harassment, which accounted for 10 percent.

Latin American countries saw the biggest change this year. The number of spam calls in Costa Rica has tripled compared to last year.

Truecaller has collected these data anonymously from calls marked as spam by phone users or flagged automatically by Truecaller. The data collecting was carried out from January 1st, 2018 to October 30th, 2018.