Kuala Lumpur, August 6: Phone scams have become prevalent in today’s society with losses amounting up to a total of RM38 million recorded between January to March this year.
Scam callers are taking advantage of many Malaysians who are already going through tough times, applying more malicious tactics like impersonation of authority figures to lower their victims’ guards – causing many people to fall into financial traps and lose their hard earned savings in the blink of an eye.
“We read the news of many people who have lost their life savings to bad actors,” Truecaller Global Head of Corporate Communications Hitesh Raj Bhagat said in a media statement.
“With Truecaller, we strongly believe that the app can be the first line of defence, protecting more Malaysians from falling prey to scam calls.
“Seeing the severe situation in Malaysia, we have decided to step up and encourage more people to safeguard themselves by downloading the app through giveaways.
“Hope this will heighten the awareness of what Truecaller can offer to the Rakyat of Malaysia,” added Hitesh.
According to Truecaller, Malaysia records nine million spam calls every month.
Out of which over two million of these calls are scam-related.
Truecaller helps identify all incoming calls from any part of the world and automatically blocks top spammers.
To know if a call is safe to pick up, the app will display a blue contact card for verified contacts or green for verified businesses, while a red contact card means it is spam or a fraudulent caller.
The app also has a unique community aspect, where the people using Truecaller report numbers in real-time to safeguard other Truecaller users.
To protect Malaysians from becoming victims of phone scams, Truecaller is stepping up its efforts to encourage the Rakyat to use the app to make communications safer and more efficient by organising giveaways in which RM250 in cash prizes are given to 55 lucky winners throughout the launch of #MYTruecaller.
The giveaways are held from July 26 till August 21.
Find out more about the #MYTruecaller giveaway by tuning in to Suria FM or visiting Suria’s Facebook and Instagram page.
Editor’s Note: ‘Rakyat’ means ‘ordinary people’ in the Malay language.
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