As noted in the Forbes Tech Council article by TransUnion SVP, James Garvert, according to the Federal Trade Commission, fraud losses topped $10 billion in 2023. Imposter scams — which grew 71% from 2021–2023 — were the top way consumers were defrauded. Fraudsters are committing increasingly sophisticated scams involving multiple channels — including phone calls, SMS, email and beyond — as part of a complex process to take advantage of consumers.
Imposter scams involve a fraudster pretending to be someone they’re not to steal money or information. Email was reported as the most commonly used method to reach consumers in the FTC report; however, the phone channel accounted for the highest per-person losses. That’s because the phone remains an incredibly popular communication channel for consumers who want that personal experience — and for enterprises that rank the phone as one of their top strategic tools for improving the customer experience.
With advances in artificial intelligence (AI), deepfake technology and large language models, phone scams have grown more complex, convincing and costly, going from $196 million in losses in 2020 to a whopping $660 million, a 237% increase just two years .
While bad actors are tapping into many channels, it’s the phone that’s the tipping point for consumers who often feel reassured enough by a human (or deepfaked) voice to click on a text or email link, or share a one-time passcode.
Today’s consumers are demanding more protection against unwanted calls and fraud, along with a way to trust phone calls again so they can safely answer calls they do want — calls from schools, healthcare organizations and more.
Enterprises, particularly financial institutions, are reporting fraudsters often jumpstart the scam by obtaining a consumer’s name, phone number and address through social engineering like phishing attacks or a data breach. Many of us have received an SMS or email with a message asking, “Did you make this payment?” Increasingly, the answer is “no.” It’s a scam.
But, if the consumer does respond, the fraudster then makes a spoofed call to them using the financial institution’s name, requests their user name, and resets their password. The bank, believing it’s a valid customer, then sends an OTP code to the consumer. The fraudster pretends the code is from the victim — thereby gaining complete access to their account.
While branded calling is a huge help, one caveat is branded calls without authentication and verification the call has NOT been spoofed may just be enabling more effective fraudulent calls. If someone convincingly spoofs a number with the logo of one of their trusted providers, the consumer may find it even more believable.
That means, only branded calls that are authenticated reach consumers.
We fully support that approach, particularly because our branded calling solution leverages rich call content to supplement the delivery of call authentication “Out-of-Band” — allowing the carrier receiving the call to verify it and retrieve the rich call content that will appear on the consumer’s mobile phone display.
Solutions are available to help enterprises securely brand their outbound calls and help prevent call spoofing. Those solutions are paving the way for a safer ecosystem where enterprises can reach more customers, and consumers don’t miss important phone calls they really want and need.
Watch the video: Secure Branded Calling Hinges on End-to-End Call Authentication
TransUnion surveyed consumers and here’s what they said about branded calling and top features:
