South Africans have been using Truecaller’s expertise to dodge unwanted phone calls for years. The same goes for the rest of the world under fire from telemarketers, phishing scammers, or annoying relatives. On Sunday, the Swedish company announced a new free-to-use tool called Scam Checker. Three guesses for what it does.
If you’ve got trust issues, Scam Checker could be handy
“Scam Checker is a free tool from Truecaller that lets you check whether a phone number or URL is likely to be safe or risky to engage with. In addition, Scam Checker also allows you to search for any type of scam and read posts by users who have encountered that scam or fallen victim to it,” the company wrote in an FAQ.
The feature, which can be located online or on the Android app, allows anyone to punch in a phone number, URL, or text messages sent your way. It’ll then spit out a recommendation of whether the number or website is generally considered to be scammy. User-generated posts from the community will also surface, providing some more insight into the scam and how it has been presented to others. The choice of avoiding or falling for it is up to the user.
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Truecaller makes it clear that the tool is entirely free to use, even without an account. We accessed Scam Checker on the dedicated website and entered our own phone number. It deemed us “Safe” and accurately stated our network provider and origin — ‘ZA’. Without any suspected spam numbers saved, we couldn’t test its accuracy.
With scams constantly on the rise — no thanks to artificial intelligence — the value of such a tool is paramount. Assuming it works, of course, and gets enough interest from the community to help it formulate a scam repository. With its large user base, that bit shouldn’t be an issue.
