Next Year, Half of All Calls to Cell Phones Will Be Scams—And There’s Nothing We Can Do

September 20, 2018

You’re not imagining it: Scammers are increasingly blowing up your phone.

First Orion, an Arkansas company that provides caller ID and call blocking services, found that the volume of mobile scam calls has risen from 3.7% of total calls in 2017 to 29.2% in 2018. That number is likely to reach 44.6% by early 2019.

First Orion analyzed more than 34 billion calls made with partner T-Mobile USA (TMUS, +2.01%) and identified about 12% of them as scams. The 58 million T-Mobile subscribers see “Scam Likely” on the caller ID screen if the service determines a call fraudulent in nature.