South Africans receive an average of 11 spam calls per month

• South Africa is still in the global top 20 when it comes to spam calls.
• Although the country has dropped several places, South Africans on average still receive more than 11 spam calls per month.
• The drop had more to do with blocking than anything else, as call centers and spammers struggled to adapt
• Unlike other top 20 countries, the worst offenders in South Africa are insurance companies.
• For more articles, go to www.BusinessInsider.co.za.

South Africa is now ranked 17th in the world in terms of the number of spam calls received on average per year, compared to sixth at the same time last year, according to a recent tally by call detection app Truecaller. .

READ | Explainer: Here’s what you need to know about SA’s massive new data privacy law

The ranking drop isn’t exactly good news, because South Africans still receive an average of 11.3 spam calls per month, up from 25.2 calls per month last year.

Nor are all spammers illegitimate businesses. Insurance companies were the worst offenders in South Africa in 2020, and no other country in the world’s top 20 is so affected by unsolicited calls from this industry. This is closely followed by scammers and companies in the financial services sector. Operators, debt collectors and telemarketers make up the remaining 20% ​​of unwanted calls in this country.

Given the high number of spam calls originating from legitimate call centers, such as those contracted with insurance companies, it is not surprising that the numbers dropped significantly as local spammers struggled to adapt to Covid’s blocking conditions. -19. As the lockdown took hold, the numbers of spam calls fell in South Africa by up to 59%. But as soon as spammers were able to get back to work or start some kind of work-from-home operation, they went back to spam with a vengeance: between April and October there was a 191% increase in spam calls, and in October of this year , Truecaller recorded just under 40 million spam calls in South Africa, well above pre-block levels.

If nothing else, this trend, which Truecaller says is mirrored in other countries around the world, shows that spammers were abiding by blocking laws that placed restrictions on call centers and other large office gatherings, or that many closed temporarily. In the early days of the pandemic, call centers were also seen as epicenters of outbreaks, with an increased risk of contracting the virus in confined spaces.

Earlier, Truecaller has noted that statistics show spammers are also like normal people and tend not to work on weekends or holidays, and Covid-19 and subsequent shutdowns revealed a similar trend when global spam reached its lowest point. low in April. In May, global spam calls had decreased by 9.7% per month, but to compensate, in October this year they had risen again by 22% compared to the period before the block. Thus, trends suggest that the Covid-19 crashes did little to permanently mitigate spam, but rather offered only a brief respite as companies readjusted to work in the world of Covid-19.

The data collected by Truecaller also shows the extent to which spam calls are a global phenomenon: Brazil remains the most affected country with an average of 49.9 spam calls per user per month, and the US rose to second place. with 28.4. India, long a first-place contender, has now dropped to ninth.

Several European countries have also entered the global top 20, including Hungary, Poland, Spain, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Germany, Romania, Greece and Belgium. Only Hungary has seen a 1,132% increase in spam calls, followed by Germany (685%), Belgium (557%) and Romania (395%).

An earlier version of the story claimed that South Africans receive an average of 11 spam calls per day (not per month). This was due to an error in the press release.

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