Fraud calls around the globe were analyzed in a recent report by Hiya. According to the report, there were 7.3 billion unwanted calls globally in Q3 2023, up from 6.55 billion in Q3. The number of spam calls peaked at 357 million the week after Thanksgiving, when U.S. consumers are shopping, distracted and therefore particularly vulnerable to scams.
American consumers in Q4 received an average of 15 spam calls per month, which was higher than all the European countries listed in the report but not as high as some countries in South America. The U.S.’s spam rate for the quarter was a relatively high 29% but 1% of those unwanted calls are fraud, giving it one of the lowest fraud rates in the world. Most fraud calls in the U.S. are blocked by the carrier at the network level, so they never reach consumers.