Did you know that the global pandemic in which we are currently immersed has multiplied spam emails, texts and phone calls at a higher rate than ever? This is confirmed by a report carried out by the developers of Truecaller , a popular spam blocking application in the United States.
And, according to the results collected and published by this report, only in the United States spam calls increased by 56 percent throughout 2020 . And many specialists are clear: scammers are thriving with the pandemic. However, there are still things we can do to stop the incessant influx of spam.
Why is there so much spam?
If you are receiving more spam right now than before, you should know that you are not alone. And it is that the arrival of many unwanted emails in our inboxes is becoming very common, which has nothing to do with the volume we received, for example, in 2019.
Fake prescription products, bad loans, information on adult sites … and, what is even worse, trying to intimidate users with requests for high amounts of bitcoins in exchange for not revealing alleged compromising images, are some of the more examples. usual.
But, according to specialists, it is not just spam emails. Something similar is also happening with unwanted text messages and phone calls that, every day, make their way into our daily lives.
BeenVerified, for example, analyzed over 180,000 spam complaints, finding that the five most common spam phone calls (or text messages) were product delivery scams, Social Security scams , credit card deals. bad credit, insurance proposals or false debt collection.
And specialists are clear why in 2020 spam increased in practically the whole world, especially if we consider how the digitization of our lives has increased since the pandemic began, given that we tend to surf the Internet more frequently than before, so we tend to download more free software, buy more products online, click on more emerging benefits, and in turn engage in other activities that may make us susceptible.
Moreover, as has happened at some point or other, it is common for unwanted calls, emails and text messages to tend to increase after a catastrophic event , as spammers prey on populations most susceptible to this type of attack. situations.
Helpful tips to limit spam
Although nowadays email services such as Gmail play a fairly acceptable role in reducing as much as possible the unwanted email that arrives in our inbox (automatically redirecting it to the corresponding folder), this may not always be the case. so effective. Fortunately, there are many ways to clean our lives from the digital garbage that floods us.
Never reply or click on any links
Any response, be it by email, text message or even calling back, can become a dangerous indication, as we are telling the spammer that it has managed to attract our attention. And the problem may be even bigger, since in this way they are more likely to persist in their activity, claiming, for example, that they are trying to solve our problem.
The most suitable? Ignore and eliminate spam completely whenever we see it. And we must also make sure that we do not click on any link that we find in the content of that message.
For example, that ‘Post Office’ URL could actually be a scam. In fact, many of the product delivery scams often invite users to click on a link to claim a purported package, then end up requesting a credit card number.
It is essential to protect our privacy to the maximum
You may be surprised to discover how it can be enormously easy for a scammer to obtain your personal information: just answer a form on a dubious website, or add any personal information to your public social profile.
For this reason, experts recommend avoiding browsing dubious websites that ask to enter personal data .
