Scam calls are the worst. During the COVID-19 pandemic, phone scammers have impersonated Apple and Amazon, pretended to be charities, and created a bogus vaccine survey. The government has tried to put a stop to this wave of scam and spam, but it will ultimately come down to individual network operators shutting the gates.
In the meantime, an eye-opening report from Truecaller shows how much Americans are suffering from these calls right now. A total of 59.49 million Americans have lost money from a phone scam in just the past 12 months—a total estimated loss of nearly $30 billion, with an average loss of $502 per victim.
The numbers show that things are only getting worse, with 3,000,000 more scam victims in 2021 than the year before. The total amount of money lost has also increased by $10 billion from 2020, with the average loss per victim increasing by $151.
Of course, part of the problem is the pandemic, with 59% of the study's respondents saying they have received scam calls or texts related to COVID-19. The other issue is that the victims aren't who you would expect. While older people are more likely to become victims of cybercrime, that may not be the case when it comes to scam calls.
According to Truecaller, those hit hardest are men between the ages of 18 and 44. The data shows that 46% of men between 35 and 44 and 40% of men between 18 and 34 have been phone-scammed in the last year, while 31% of women between 18 and 34 have been scammed. These are the top three segments of telescam victims.
While we can't prevent you from falling for a scam, we can help you block those annoying robocalls and spam text messages.