Landline Landscape - Study on Seniors
Do You Know Who's Calling Mom & Dad?
If you've ever felt like scam callers are targeting older Americans, well, you'd be correct.
As imp becomes an essential tool for caregivers and kids looking to keep their parents safe from scams, it's important to understand the predatory nature of these nefarious callers.
In our latest Landline Landscape Report, we analyzed the data on call volume and type placed to households of seniors and compared the data with calls placed to an average household.
Scammers Target Seniors with 200 Landline Calls Per Week - 4x the Average Household
Americans aged 65+, including those afflicted with cognitive impairments such as Alzheimer's and Dementia, receive almost 200 unwanted landline calls every week.
That’s more than 28 calls a day from bad actors trying to defraud and steal.
When compared to the average landline user, that's FOUR times as many unwanted telephone calls.
Senior Households Receive More "wanted" Calls, Too
While older Americans are on the receiving end of more overall calls, this call volume also translates to the number of "wanted" calls they receive.
Seniors receive 14 wanted calls per week, versus 6 wanted calls for the average landline household. This shows that friends and family actively maintain communication with the older population.
Seniors Receive 45% More Calls with Hidden Caller ID Information
9.5% of the landline calls placed to senior households do not have Caller ID information. This is a tactic landline scammers use in order to lure the unsuspecting senior to pick up.
This is in contrast to the average household with a landline who see 6.5% of calls come in without Caller ID information.
The bottom line: do not answer a call that does not have Caller ID information.
Traditional Call Blockers for Landlines are a 5% Solution
In our analysis, traditional call blockers for landlines stop just 5% of unwanted landline calls.
These 5% "blockable" calls came from known bad guys using the same number. However, scammers can leverage cheap technology which makes calling from different numbers simply "best practice."
And these scammers have hundreds of millions of possible numbers to call you from. So if you block one, they will just call from another. And if you block that one, your phone will ring from the third number they use.
That's why imp focuses on the calls you actually want. Everyone else gets sent to voicemail without a single ring.
