Security News > 2022 > May > $39.5 billion lost to phone scams in last year

Truecaller announced a research conducted in partnership with The Harris Poll in March of 2022, and the findings detail trends/insights on the impact of spam and phone scams that have increasingly permeated the U.S. over the last 12 months.

The study estimates that a staggering $39.5 billion was lost to phone scams this past year, which is the highest number recorded since Truecaller began researching scam and spam calls in the U.S. eight years ago.

Of those who lost money to phone scams in the last year, the average reported loss was $577, up 14.94% from the average in 2021 of $502, and robocallers were reported to have duped 61.1% of these people.

Sadly, American seniors reported a higher average of monthly spam calls and texts than their younger counterparts compared to a year ago and the largest target for spam texts are males over the age of 65.

Hispanics - although they received less spam calls and texts overall - are more likely to have fallen victim to phone scams in their lifetime.

Neighbor spoofing, i.e. the act of spam calling someone with their same area code, increased over the last year with 51% of respondents answering they've seen an increase in these types of clever robocalls.

News URL

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/05/30/spam-phone-scams-impact/