Robokiller’s mid-year phone scam report, released this week, reveals that Americans saw robotexts grow, but there also was a decline in robocalls during the first half of the year. The company makes software designed to block out spam robocalls and robotexts.
According to Robokiller research, Americans received 78 billion robotexts and 31 billion robocalls between January and June, an 18% increase and 21% decrease from that same timeframe last year, respectively.
The increase in robotexts is driven, in part, by text-based scams, the researchers said.
In the first half of the year, scammers stole an estimated $13 billion using robotexts, a $4 billion increase over the same period of 2022, according to Robokiller.
Robotexts averaged close to 13 billion per month during the first half of the year. Robokiller attributes the high level to how easy it is for scammers to send these messages. As would be expected, once fraudsters found scams that work, that’s where they focused their efforts.
For the first half of 2023, that was delivery-related messages, according to the robotexts report. Scammers often posed as well-known brands like Amazon, FedEx and UPS, including links in their messages hoping that someone would click and inadvertently provide their personal information.
Though the FCC has announced plans to combat robotexts, it could take some time before Americans see a significant impact from these efforts. A separate regulator, the FTC, recently announced its own plans to combat the illegal telemarketing calls.
