Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya top African countries with fraud related spam calls and messages says Truecaller

shakirudeen taiwo

July 17, 2017 3:07 AM

In 2016, Nigeria’s telecom industry regulator instructed network operators in the country to stop sending unsolicited SMS's or calls to subscribers or face N5 million ($16,000) fine.

People are now unwilling to pick calls from unknown numbers, as they fear it may be another spam or tele-marketing call from telecom operators.

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Truecaller also revealed that telecom operators in these countries due to marketing and advertising are major culprits in this practice.

Truecaller is an identification solution application company aimed at ensuring the safety of mobile users.

Among top 20 countries affected by spam calls were India, with 22.6 per cent; USA and Brazil, with 20.7 per cent each; Chile, 17.4 per cent; and South Africa, with 15 per cent.

Other African countries such as Nigeria (10.4 per cent), Egypt (9.9%), Morocco and Kenya (7.7%).

In many African countries, issues of regulating the activities of the telecom operators regarding telemarketing have been subject of concerns and many directives have been issued to curtail unwanted calls.

In Egypt, Nigeria and Kenya, over 90% of these calls were noted as Scam – a fraud attempts, money swindling, unknown links. Egypt was noted as the country receiving most scam calls in the world.

For South Africa, the report shows that rate of scam attempt through spam calls to be very low (1%) while telemarketing, financial and insurance promotion generated calls are most known types of spam calls in the country.

The report noted that spam calls from telecom operators in Nigeria represent about 27% of total calls. These are generally unwanted calls which caused disturbance to users arising from harassment and pranks.

Also, telemarketing was noted as a major issue that Nigeria needs to address as they most time lead to fraud attempts, money swindling, leading unsuspecting preys to unknown links, among others.

The report noted that Truecaller apps users received about 5.5 billion spam calls between January 1, 2017, and May 31, 2017.

shakirudeen taiwo