Understanding Spam—And How To Stop It

(NAPSI)—The next time your phone rings, there’s a good chance it will be a spam call. According to recent research Americans average 2.7 billion such calls a month, lasting about 4 minutes each. As a result, an estimated 248 million hours, (which collectively equates to 10.3 million days or 339,000 months) were wasted answering spam calls in the last 12 months alone. 

The majority of these calls are related to credit card fraud, identity theft, medicare/insurance, social security, car warranty and debt collection. Many people are not able to accurately recognize unwanted communication, allowing spammers or scammers to trap their victims.

How many you get may depend on where you are. The top 10 states for unwanted calls are:

1. Mississippi

2. Oklahoma

3. South Carolina

4. Alabama

5. Arkansas

6. Louisiana

7. Texas

8. Tennessee

9. Wyoming

10 .Ohio

The places getting the least number of spam calls are:

1. Puerto Rico

2. Alaska

3. Hawaii

4. Massachusetts

5. Vermont 

Fortunately, wherever you are, there are ways to avoid them. 

What You Can Do

Here are three tips to help you handle such scams:

1. Hang up. When you get a robocall, don’t press any numbers to let you speak to a live operator or remove you from their call list. It might lead to more robocalls.

2. Consider call blocking or a call labeling app such as Truecaller. Since 2009, Truecaller, a leader in caller ID and spam blocking software, has been a global combatant against spam and fraud, tirelessly working to safeguard communication for all. 

Its easy-to-use app can: 

• Auto-block spam calls and SMSs

• Identify who is calling you

• Search unlimited phone numbers

• Record phone calls

3. Don’t trust your caller ID: Scammers can make any name or number show up on your caller ID. That’s called spoofing. Even if it looks like it’s a government agency, or like the call is from a local number, it could be a scammer from anywhere in the world.

Learn More

For further facts and stats from the experts at Truecaller and to find out how to get the app and have it work for you, visit www.truecaller.com.

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On the Net:North American Precis Syndicate, Inc.(NAPSI)