Spam text messages took flight in March, as they soared a whopping 28% from February 2022. Meanwhile, spam calls leapt 21% month-over-month, according to data from RoboKiller, the app that eliminates 99% of spam calls and text messages.
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In its Yearly Phone Scam Insights report, RoboKiller predicted that spam texts were no fad and would continue to pester Americans in 2022. So far, that’s precisely what’s happened. The Verizon scam text is just one example of this playing out in real-time.
Spam texts have become so widespread they’ve reached heights that not even spam calls have reached before. In March alone, spam text messages totaled 11 billion, the highest figure RoboKiller has ever observed for either spam type since it began monitoring spam calls in 2017.
Why the large increase? For one, the industry is focused on combating spam calls following the release of STIR/SHAKEN, a framework designed to curb spam calls using spoofed caller IDs (the percentage of spoofed spam calls remained relatively consistent in the months before and after the June 30, 2021 implementation deadline, signaling there’s still work to be done in that pursuit). The framework does not address text messages and scammers know that.
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March 2022 Key Phone Spam Trends
Americans were hit with a flurry of delivery- and political-related messages, the latter of which is likely due to the approaching midterm elections. RoboKiller identified a similar increase during the 2020 election season.
Top Spam Texts Nationwide:
|
Spam Text Category |
Estimated Spam Texts |
% of Total Spam Texts |
|
Political-related |
2,043,849,062 |
17.53% |
|
Delivery (Amazon, UPS, USPS, etc.) |
1,158,088,853 |
9.93% |
|
Bank |
356,400,340 |
3.06% |
Top Spam Calls Nationwide:
|
Robocall Category |
Estimated Spam Calls |
% of Total Robocalls |
Robocall Examples |
|
Vehicle W******* |
1,038,964,754 |
13.75% |
Listen to spam call recording |
|
Health Insurance |
550,840,222 |
7.29% |
Listen to spam call recording |
View RoboKiller’s recent blog post for tips to stay safe from text scams.
Tips On How To Stop Phone Scams:
- Don’t answer phone calls from unknown numbers, especially those that call or text at odd hours.
- Don’t follow prompts like “Press 1” or click any links.
- Never provide personal information like banking details or other sensitive information to unknown callers.
- Download a spam text and spam call blocker like RoboKiller to equip your phone with the latest technology to stop scams.
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