Almost Half Of All Cell Phone Calls Will Be Spam By Next Year

How often do you get calls on your cell from numbers nearly identical to your own? You’ve likely come to realize they’re all scam calls, and tech firm First Orion has found that mobile scam calls increased from 3.7% in 2017 to 29.2% in 2018, and it’s only going to get worst. The company predicts the number of fraudulent cell phone calls for 2019 will be 44.6%. Lawmakers have taken notice of this issue, as have consumers. First Orion EVP Scott Hambuchen testified before Congress back in April in a hearing on robocalls, in which he said, “The fraudsters are very sophisticated, evolving their practices to avoid being labeled or blocked. As a result, we are in an arms race, not a marathon with a finish line, and will be in it until we make it unprofitable.”