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One important requirement for this law is that voice service providers (VoIP) must implement STIR/SHAKEN, which uses digital certificates to authenticate calls, determine their legitimacy, and inform use cases such as labeling potential spam calls as "scam likely." Most larger phone carriers will be required to enact STIR/SHAKEN by June 2021 in an attempt to restrict caller ID spoofing. In addition, The Pallone-Thune TRACED Act was signed into law in 2019 to help protect consumers from spam calls. Since the FCC announcement, RoboKiller has noticed a slight dip in health insurance-related spam calls but anticipates this drop could be temporary. This is the largest fine to date and part of an expanded effort to stop automated robocalls. Recently the FCC fined two Texas-based telemarketing companies $255 millionfor making automated robocalls in 2019. As these scams reach record-breaking levels and economic stress from the COVID-19 pandemic grows, it's likely total consumer losses to phone fraud will continue to worsen in 2021. Of those 2020 fraud reports, 27% said the contact method was a text message, while 31% reported the contact method was a phone call, showing spam text messages are just as large of a problem as spam calls, if not larger. Spam Text Message Explosion: What's The Impact?Īccording to the FTC, in 2020, 2.2 million Americans reported losses totaling $3.3 billion to digital fraud - a whopping 73% increase from 2019's $1.9 billion. Top Five Most Spam-Texted States Per Capita: The previous record was only two months ago, in January 2021, with 6 billion spam text messages, showing that spam text messages are rapidly on the rise and show no signs of slowing down.
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Spam text messages continue to grow month over month, reaching record levels at 7.4 billion in March. Spam Text Messages Make Their Presence Known Spammers typically thrive during times of uncertainty and economic stress because it can be easier for the more vulnerable to fall victim to their scams. In mid-2020, RoboKiller anticipated spam calls and text messages could return to normal levels or beyond as COVID-19 related hindrances to spammers' phone scam operations, especially quarantine orders, were lifted. The rise in spam calls and texts is not unexpected. With more Americans now wary of answering phone calls from unknown numbers, recent trends show that scammers are relying more heavily on the use of text messages as their weapon of choice to steal from more Americans over the phone. March's record-breaking totals mark a key inflection point in the fight against phone scams. Spam calls were no different, hitting a record 6.3 billion in March 2021 and surpassing October 2020's previous high of 6.1 billion. In off-work hours, Leanne is a mother of two, homesteader, audiobook fanatic, musician, and learning enthusiast.NEW YORK, Ap/PRNewswire/ - RoboKiller, the app that helps eliminate spam calls and text messages, reveals Americans received a staggering 7.4 billion spam text messages in March - a 37% increase from February 2021. She enjoys making reader's lives easier and putting her education experience to work by walking them through the most practical ways to use Apple devices, step-by-step. Despite years of web work, Leanne is by no means an early adapter she's only owned a smartphone for five years, which makes her highly sympathetic to the learning curve of new iPhone owners. She has over nine years of experience with SEO, social media management, and web development and writing. Leanne has an associate's degree in education, with a focus on curriculum development, as well as a bachelor's degree in science. She's a former Associate Editor for iPhone Life magazine, and has written for the Iowa Source, as well as web content for education marketing. Leanne Hays is an SEO Content Strategist and Feature Writer at iPhone Life, and has written hundreds of in-depth how-to and troubleshooting articles.