Despite the rise of sophisticated crypto frauds and ransomware plots, phone scams continue to trick Americans out of tens of billions of dollars each year. It's not only older people who fall for such phone scams. Young people and men get tricked the most.

“It’s very cheap to set up an automatic dialer and to plug a bunch of phone numbers into it, whether they’re random or they are very intentional by geography or by demographic, and place millions of phone calls in a very short period of time,” said Clayton LiaBraaten, senior executive advisor at Truecaller. “It’s a numbers game.”

Phone scams are on the rise. Truecaller, which makes an app that blocks spam calls, estimates that nearly 70 million Americans have lost money to phone scams in 2022, and that those scammers made off with nearly $40 billion in total. Phone scams include frauds that begin with calls and text messages. Watch the video above to learn more about why phone scams remain so prevalent, how people are fighting back against them and how not to become a victim.

Produced by: Anuz Thapa
Edited by: Dennis Donovan
Narrated by: Jordan Smith
Additional camera: Christian Nunley
Graphics by: Jason Reginato

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How Phone Scammers Tricked Americans Out of Nearly $40 Billion In 2022