Spam calls are still a burning issue in Brazil

Surely you know the feeling. You do your job during the day and suddenly you receive a call from an unknown number. You have the urge to turn off the caller, but then you wonder what if it's something important. You take the phone and it's one of those annoying spam calls.

Brazil is currently the most affected country for unknown calls. These calls start at 10 in the morning and end around 8 in the evening. Sometimes they call ten times a day. The average Brazilian receives 45,6 spam calls per month. This is an 81% increase per year.

The number of spam calls has doubled

Of course, not only Brazil is facing this problem. Other Latin American countries, such as Peru, Chile and Colombia, are on the list of the ten most affected countries for spam calls. Of the 21 monthly spam calls, residents of these states will receive 46, which is a twofold increase compared to previous years.

At first, analysts thought the problem was caused by telephone companies offering competitive telephone tariffs. Then came the controversial political elections of 2018, which theorized that these calls were political. Scam artists, bankers, telemarketers, machines, even prison inmates with contraband phones: Anyone who can call does.

While there is an increasing emphasis on data collection and sharing in the world, Brazilians are still struggling with infinity of registrations. Even buying everyday items — such as toothpaste at the pharmacy — will prompt a request from the sales attendant for personal tax identification numbers. All of that data gets sold, and resold, leaked and stolen, and the phone starts ringing. Brazil is in this way virtually unregulated, which means that it's hard to know where the calls are coming from.

In comparison to other countries, Brazil is definitely the most telephonically harassed nation in the world. While countries like the United States, Italy or Great Britain are continuously working on solutions, situation in Brazil is still completely out of control.

Anyone with phone can call

That's why we decided to step in and develop the Block Spam Calls, online reverse phone lookup database, which today contains more than 20 million contacts. It contains contacts from around the world from America to India. Just receive an unknown number, search for it in the database and you know right away who you are dealing with. By entering numbers into the database, you participate in its operation - future users will know that the number, which called you, is spam.

We have also developed two call blocking applications - Numbo for iOS and Octocaller for Android. When you install a call blocking app an alert will appear on your phone while it is ringing. This will tell you if the number is safe to pick up or if it is spam.

Ready to get rid of spam? Try out Numbo for iOS, or OctoCaller for Android and enjoy a spam-free life.