Consumers blame banks, retailers, and telcos for scam messages: Callsign

The survey shows erosion of digital trust.

A survey by Callsign released 23 September reveals 45% of consumers say their trust in businesses such as banks, retailers, mobile network operators, and delivery companies has decreased due to the persistent scam of spoofing brand names. Around 42% of consumers from Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Singapore ask mobile network operators to do more to stop scammers using their platforms, and 33% ask the same of banks.

People claim to have received scams through email (67%), SMS (57%), phone (46%), messaging apps (33%), and social media (23%) in the last year. However, 37% of global consumers do not know where or who to report a scam message. Over half of consumers do not trust organisations to keep their data safe, with 43% of scam victims reacting with suspicion and wanting to know where fraudsters got their details.

"Callsign's data demonstrates that consumer trust in our digital world has vanished, and brands are blamed. Yet the sense is that little is done to purposely re-establish digital trust through complete and accurate digital identities," says senior vice president Stuart Dobbie.

"The solution lies in re-thinking how we fight fraud and how we identify people online. Current approaches tackle both challenges by only identifying fraud," states general manager Namrata Jolly. "The problem with this approach is that a fraudster using stolen credentials looks like a genuine user gaining access to accounts or executing transactions. If instead fraud strategies look to identify only genuine users, this automatically and simultaneously prevents fraud."

Callsign's technology involves the layering of behavioural biometrics over threat detection, device, and location data. Organisations eliminate one point of failure in the authentication process and achieve two-factor authentication with minimal friction.