It has been a long time! tellows hopes you enjoyed the summer. This time we would like to present the latest statistics about phone scams from the past two months. As a reminder, a bill ‘TRACED ACT’ was passed in July and it aims to lower the number of robocalls. However, according to Forbes, robocalls are still prevailing and the number of robocalls in the second quarter this year was 38% higher than last year; the number of imposter phone scams was also 28% higher.
Let’s have a look at the most wanted number by categories on tellows in September! so you can avoid these numbers and if you want to know more, please visit our statistics page.
1. Imposter scam
The top of most reported phone scams according to FTC. In 2019 there are 326,796 reports and a total of $143.4M lost due to imposter scams, and the number is still climbing. A good way to avoid falling victim of an imposter scam is to check everything. When an incoming call does not sound right, such as when the caller refuses to reveal the company name or they say you have a parcel but you didn’t order anything lately, you should be careful with them and search the number online.
Number related to imposter scam reported on tellows:
8152090873 | tellows score 8
user comment:
‘Robo call pretending to be from Social Security Administration threatening to sue due to suspicious activity with social security number’
8772581993 | tellows score 9
Brandy’s comment:
‘Robocall claiming I have a package I need to come pick up but only after calling an alternate number. SCAM.’
2. Robocalls
Needless to say robocalls are a serious problem in the US telecommunication industry. It affects our daily lives and costs us billions of dollars per year. With its increasing trend according to Forbes, Americans are facing 200 million unwanted robocalls a day. Almost half of the phone calls in the US are unwanted calls. The Senate had passed a bill trying to solve the problem by working with telecommunication companies yet reports show the project is not so successful. According to FTC, there are 763,977 reports and a total loss of $717 M in 2019. The most common payment method is wire transfer and credit card, and the most common contact method is by phone. People who aged between 60 to 69 has the highest number of frauds reports and also the highest record of loss, which is $45 M in total.
Numbers related to robocalls reported on tellows:
8009001380 | tellows score 7 | Caller name: Penn Credit
FuzzyDog’s comment:
‘Asked for a garbled name on robocall, said there was a debt and that I should call them. All of my student loans are current and that’s all the debt I have, so this is someone who is trying to scam me for some money.’
3155440923 | tellows score 9 | caller name: Fake tech support
JT’s comment:
‘A robocaller with poor English left a partial message on my answering machine. The beginning is cut off, but here it the rest of the message verbatim: “concerning your subscription with our company. As you can see you have been charged with $399 yesterday. So for the investigation purpose, we have to cancel your subscription. If you are not aware of this payment, please press 1. To… speak to the executive of our accounts department. They will help you refund your $399. And you can also reach U.S. (us) back on this number 3155440923.’
tellows hope this article gives you some insights about the recent trend of phone scams in the US! We hope it helps preventing phone frauds. The tellows app is a good way to stay away from unwanted calls by call blocking and caller identification. Visit our website to know more about tellows! Good day:)
Your tellows team
