2022 has indeed been an absolute feast for phone scammers. According to Truecaller's recent study, scams have increased threefold in the US in the last 12 months. The platform reported a whopping loss of $39.5 billion to phone scams alone. This is the highest recorded figure yet.
According to the research, more than 33% of people living in the US have been a victim of this fraud with 20% of them on more than one occasion. This highlights the shortcomings of the government since these frauds have bypassed even the most complex frameworks like the STIR/SHAKEN framework by the Federal Communications Commission. These frameworks are created to protect the public from call scams, however, the government is failing to do so.
The research also uncovered that men fall for these scams easier than women. Amongst the people that did fall for the scam, 55.6% were men while women were 42.2% only. Furthermore, young men are more prone to losing money than older men. Men aged 45 and above are smart enough to not be falling prey to such attacks.
We also came across a new fact - men aged 65 and above, and Hispanics are more likely to fall for scams and phone frauds than those aged below or belonging to any other ethnicity. Hispanics are more prone to losing money as can be seen by Truecaller's results that showed that 74% of Hispanic people were targeted and have lost money in the last 12 months when compared to Black or White adult individuals.
Next, we found out that the solution that most resort to avoid this problem has been causing further problems for most people. Amongst the people in question, about 63% believe they might lose important calls due to blocking apps that might filter out calls inappropriately. While 43% of the population did download apps to protect themselves, 25% missed calls that were important and had to suffer.
Due to this large number of scams this year, only a few people are trusting enough to even pick up unknown callers anymore. While 86% of Americans only pick up when the caller is identifiable, 60% have stopped picking up calls altogether and have resorted to other methods of communicating. These include texts, emails, faxes, etc.
When talking about taking action, we found out that only people with enough money to change their credit cards or phone information took some action. It was also seen that young adults were taking steps like downloading protective applications to be safe in the future. When it comes to older people, they always take action after they have already been scammed.
To conclude, the people are afraid and there is no way to take this fear out of their hearts. The scammers continue to fish for new methods, increasing scam texts, resorting to overseas robocalling, and whatnot to scam innocent people. The scammers are sly enough to fool the government hence there seems little hope. However, being a bit vigilant can help in those times.
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According to the research, more than 33% of people living in the US have been a victim of this fraud with 20% of them on more than one occasion. This highlights the shortcomings of the government since these frauds have bypassed even the most complex frameworks like the STIR/SHAKEN framework by the Federal Communications Commission. These frameworks are created to protect the public from call scams, however, the government is failing to do so.
The research also uncovered that men fall for these scams easier than women. Amongst the people that did fall for the scam, 55.6% were men while women were 42.2% only. Furthermore, young men are more prone to losing money than older men. Men aged 45 and above are smart enough to not be falling prey to such attacks.
We also came across a new fact - men aged 65 and above, and Hispanics are more likely to fall for scams and phone frauds than those aged below or belonging to any other ethnicity. Hispanics are more prone to losing money as can be seen by Truecaller's results that showed that 74% of Hispanic people were targeted and have lost money in the last 12 months when compared to Black or White adult individuals.
Next, we found out that the solution that most resort to avoid this problem has been causing further problems for most people. Amongst the people in question, about 63% believe they might lose important calls due to blocking apps that might filter out calls inappropriately. While 43% of the population did download apps to protect themselves, 25% missed calls that were important and had to suffer.
Due to this large number of scams this year, only a few people are trusting enough to even pick up unknown callers anymore. While 86% of Americans only pick up when the caller is identifiable, 60% have stopped picking up calls altogether and have resorted to other methods of communicating. These include texts, emails, faxes, etc.
When talking about taking action, we found out that only people with enough money to change their credit cards or phone information took some action. It was also seen that young adults were taking steps like downloading protective applications to be safe in the future. When it comes to older people, they always take action after they have already been scammed.
To conclude, the people are afraid and there is no way to take this fear out of their hearts. The scammers continue to fish for new methods, increasing scam texts, resorting to overseas robocalling, and whatnot to scam innocent people. The scammers are sly enough to fool the government hence there seems little hope. However, being a bit vigilant can help in those times.
