South Africa continues to be one of the most spammed countries in the world – the country jumped from the 5th in 2017 to the 4th most spam affected country in the world in 2018.
Data from Stockholm-based phone-number identification app Truecaller has revealed that an average South African phone user received 21.0 spam calls a month in 2018. This is the fourth highest in the world. Only Brazil, India and Chile had more spam callers per user in 2018, the company said.
With regard to spam call categorisation, scammers and telemarketers are the top spammers in South Africa with 87% user calls received for the upselling of various offers and scams.
According to the report, 49% of all top spam calls in South Africa is scam related e.g. tech support fraud, where someone pretends to call from your bank or a company saying that your account has been hijacked and need your help to take control of it; one ring scam, an unknown number gives you a missed call and when you call them back you get charged a hefty fee for calling to that number; job offer scam, someone pretends to be a headhunter calling you to offer you a job but you need to pay a fee in order to get the job.
Telemarketing is also a big problem in South Africa, according to the Truecaller it accounts to 38% of all top spam calls in the country. These type of calls usally come from various companies, insurance agencies and financial services trying to offer something.
South Africa is currently the fastest growing market for Truecaller in Africa. The country has excelled all countries in the region, becoming the fastest growing market for truecaller on the continent.
With more than 3.2 million users in South Africa, the Truecaller app blocks more than 12 million calls and 21.5 million spam SMS’s on a monthly basis in South Africa.
The Truecaller app, which allows people to see who is calling and filter out spam calls and SMSes, has 250 million verified users globally and over 50 million of those users are in Africa. The service identifies more than half a billion calls on a monthly basis in Africa, and it says 50% of all SMSes that users receive are considered spam.
