Spam Calls Grew 18% This Year Despite the Global Pandemic

Despite several efforts from carriers, telecom regulators, mobile operating system developers, smartphone makers, and a global pandemic, spam calls continued to pester and scam people around the globe this year — and they only got worse. From a report: Users worldwide received 31.3 billion spam calls between January and October this year, up from 26 billion during the same period last year, and 17.7 billion the year prior, according to Stockholm-headquartered firm Truecaller. The firm, best known for its caller ID app, estimated that an average American received 28.4 spam calls a month this year, up from 18.2 last year. As a result, And with 49.9 spam calls per user a month, up from an already alarming 45.6 figure last year, Brazil remained the worst impacted nation to spam calls, the firm said in its yearly report on the subject. The coronavirus pandemic, however, lowered the volume of spam calls users had to field in several markets, including India, which topped Truecaller’s chart for the worst nation affected three years ago. The nation, the biggest market of Truecaller, dropped to the 9th position on the chart this year with 16.8 monthly spam calls per user, down from 25.6 last year.