Nuisance Calls!
It struck me recently. I was casually chatting with a friend when he told me about how he got sucked into an IRS scam — which in turn made me remember reading about a similar ‘scam-center’ ring that got busted in India last month. Up until that point I had presumed, like many of us, that phone scams happen only to some (rather unfortunate) people.
Being a ‘product guy’, I wanted numbers. A quick Google search whacked that perspective into me — according to a 2014 study, 17.6 million Americans lost an estimated $8.6 BILLION via fraud conducted over the phone — in the preceding 12 months alone!
But when you think about it, it’s not just about scams. Spams or even unwanted calls in general have become a global nuisance. According to a recent UK study published by Which?, 85% phone holders receive nuisance calls. A similar Australian study reports 92% of people who received telemarketing calls thought these were a problem. The situation isn’t dramatically different here in the US, where 68% of the population is affected by text message spam. Another study gives a rather interesting spin to it :
“more Americans say that they’ve received text message spam than those who ate breakfast!”
No one intentionally asks for it but then how does this happen? And why is it so widespread? Quick exercise: try to remember the last 3 times you gave your phone number to someone. Anyone.
Well, the problem could be as simple as that. How, you ask. This should help :
These days everyone wants our data. Heck, every other app asks for it. From pizza delivery to banks, there’s really no counting how many times we willingly give our contact information away and the problem just compounds from there onward, as is evident from the explanation above.
Maybe a lot of us don’t realize this, but our personal mobile number is part of our identity too. We go to significant lengths to safeguard our SSN, credit card details etc but when it comes to mobile number, or even our home address, we rarely think twice before disclosing them.
But then, what is the solution? A few companies have been working on different aspects of the problem. Google (Voice) and Truecaller perhaps the two biggest attempts at it.
What I want to understand is, are these attempts enough? Help me out by taking this quick survey :
