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World-wide, credit card fraud and other scams cost the public billions of dollars. While credit card fraud is the clear leader in sheer volume of money lost, "regular scams" still result in a significant amount of money being lost each year. Globally, credit card fraud resulted in losses of US$21.84 billion in 2015. The so-called "Nigerian scam", usually perpetrated via email, totalled US$12.7 billion in 2013. Overall losses are likely to be much larger however, as many scams go unreported.
While scams that come in over email are increasingly being picked up by spam filters, around 45% of scams in Australia (and likely other countries) are by phone and text message.
Email spam filters are using machine learning techniques to get better at identifying the wide range of scams that can arrive in inboxes. This is by far the most effective way of dealing with scams, as the average member of the public has been shown to be remarkably susceptible. However, very little has been done about phone and text scams. This is surprising given scammers have quite brazenly stuck to using the same number or area codes over significant periods of time.
[...] Google and Apple should, however, be able to do more independently of these agencies. With the advent of machine learning techniques being used to analyse emails, it will be also possible to apply the same technology to phone calls.
[...] The list of other scam types is fairly consistent, and so is identifiable by software interpreting the conversation in real time. Governments should apply pressure on companies like Apple and Google to tackle this problem. Until then however, it is worth using one of the third party apps (like: TrueCaller, Hiya ) to ward off scams.
Do you have suggestions on how these scams could be stopped ?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 26 2017, @07:09PM (1 child)
You have the two worst things in the world of logistical progress:
Old technology that must not break.
Monopolies created and protected by government.
What did you expect?
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday June 26 2017, @09:15PM
Telephone PSTN access can be controlled by the means of caller-ID and in addition with a PIN-code for cases this won't catch. If a realtime link can be established with your bank then you can rig your phone to require a funds transfer before a call is let through.
The problem with the PSTN system is that caller-ID may be faked. And a bank connection can be hard to get. Also VoIP is likely to be the thing which makes investment in PSTN kind of questionable. Ie, use my VoIP (IP) number or stuff it etc.