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Spam calls grew 300 percent worldwide in 2018, according to Truecaller

Spam calls grew 300 percent worldwide in 2018, according to Truecaller

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According to a company that was named Chinese spyware

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Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Spam calls grew by 300 percent worldwide this year, according to a new report from Truecaller, a caller ID service. But while the scourge continues to grow overall, some countries actually saw a slight decline — including the US.

The United States fell from the 2nd most spammed country to the 8th in one year, according to Truecaller. Truecaller users received about 17 calls per month, down from 21 in 2017. The bulk of calls purported to be about insurance or debt collection, according to the report.

While no reason was given for the drop, authorities have increasingly tried to crack down on illegal callers. The Federal Trade Commission has brought several lawsuits, while the Federal Communications Commission has considered various regulations to deal with the issue and in one case slapped an egregious robocaller with an $82 million fine.

Brazil was the most spammed country

The issue continues to escalate elsewhere. Brazil was found to be the most spammed country in 2018, with the average Truecaller user getting over 37 spam calls a month. This was likely due to calls from telecom operators and calls made related to the general election, the company said. India, which was the most spammed country in 2017, has dropped down to second place, with a decrease of 1.5 percent.

Truecaller says that in total, its users received 17.7 billion spam calls between January and October. The report counted a call as spam if it was flagged by algorithms or manually by users.

Since Truecaller doesn’t count data outside of its customer base, its results and rankings have to be taken with a grain of salt. Another report from a robocall blocking service called YouMail reported 28.5 billion spam calls occurring in the US within the first eight months of this year, a figure that vastly exceeds Truecaller’s numbers and seems more in line with the multiple-calls-per-day nuisance many of us are contending with.