Quite a few people who are based in the US have begun to pay attention to the striking rise in spam calls that they have been receiving as of late. A study conducted by Hiya recently revealed that around 25% of all phone calls made in the US are nuisance calls, and 0.73% are outright fraud attempts with all things having been considered and taken into account.
In spite of the fact that this is the case, it bears mentioning that the number of calls that are flagged as spam has actually decreased by 26% between the fourth quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023. This still averages out to 14.5 spam calls per person per month, which basically means that regular Americans receive approximately one spam call every two days or so.
With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that there has still been a rise in the proportion of fraud calls in the first quarter of 2023. Whereas fraud calls comprise around 0.73% of all calls in general, they come up to 1.8% of the total if we just look at this quarter.
One explanation for this is the holiday season in Q4 2022. Spam calls usually go up in this period because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up making people more likely to fall for them. Hence, spam calls are usually lower than might have been the case otherwise during the first quarter of a year, which seems to suggest that the number is actually stagnant.
However, a stagnation in the growth rate of spam calls is actually a heartening sign. It indicates that these calls are not seeing all that much success, and if the current trend persists we might see a marked decline in such calls over the next few years. Most of these calls involve medical scams, so consumers need to be on their guard if they receive a call that asks them to provide any type of medical information to the person on the other end.
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In spite of the fact that this is the case, it bears mentioning that the number of calls that are flagged as spam has actually decreased by 26% between the fourth quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023. This still averages out to 14.5 spam calls per person per month, which basically means that regular Americans receive approximately one spam call every two days or so.
With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that there has still been a rise in the proportion of fraud calls in the first quarter of 2023. Whereas fraud calls comprise around 0.73% of all calls in general, they come up to 1.8% of the total if we just look at this quarter.
One explanation for this is the holiday season in Q4 2022. Spam calls usually go up in this period because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up making people more likely to fall for them. Hence, spam calls are usually lower than might have been the case otherwise during the first quarter of a year, which seems to suggest that the number is actually stagnant.
However, a stagnation in the growth rate of spam calls is actually a heartening sign. It indicates that these calls are not seeing all that much success, and if the current trend persists we might see a marked decline in such calls over the next few years. Most of these calls involve medical scams, so consumers need to be on their guard if they receive a call that asks them to provide any type of medical information to the person on the other end.
Read next: Apple Hits New Record As The Average Selling Price For iPhones Stands At An All-Time High
