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Truecaller takes its scam intelligence to the open web as it looks beyond caller ID

Truecaller takes its scam intelligence to the open web as it looks beyond caller ID

techcrunch.com 28.09.2026 06:30 2 views
Truecaller finds a new way to reach users as pressure grows on its traditional caller ID business in India, its biggest market.

After more than a decade building a caller ID business serving over 500 million users, Truecaller is now taking the scam intelligence it gathered along the way to the open web, with no app or sign-in required. The Swedish company on Sunday launched Scam Checker, a new web and Android service that lets users paste in a suspicious phone number, link, or message to find out if it’s fraudulent. To work, the service surfaces related reports from Truecaller’s community, ScamFeed.

However, more detailed information about a phone number, including the name associated with it, remains available only through Truecaller’s existing service, which requires a sign-in. The free-to-access tool will initially be available in India and is set to expand to Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, and Southeast Asia, the company said. In addition to serving as lead generation for its app, the community reports can give Truecaller a better view of the scams circulating at a given time.

This could also help the company with its fraud and risk products sold to enterprises through Truecaller for Business, although Jhunjhunwala said Scam Checker itself is aimed at consumers. To work, Truecaller’s Scam Checker checks the link the user submits, expanding shortened URLs and following redirects to the final destination. It then checks these against its proprietary risk database and other fraud signals.

Users can also paste a suspicious message, allowing the service to pick out a phone number or link and surface related reports from the Truecaller community. The launch comes as scams have grown well beyond phone calls to text messages, messaging apps, and web links. In a 2025 GSMA survey of Indian adults (PDF), 46% of those who reported being scammed said they were approached through messaging apps, while 37% via SMS and 32% through voice calls.

Truecaller estimates that people make about 14 million web searches a month to check suspicious links and phone numbers, based on its analysis of search volumes and traffic to existing verification services. That behavior helped shape Scam Checker, CEO Rishit Jhunjhunwala told TechCrunch. The link shows up on WhatsApp.

Your mum gets a message about a traffic fine. A friend forwards you a screenshot and asks, ‘Is this real?’” Jhunjhunwala said. The company told TechCrunch that about 20,000 scam reports are live on ScamFeed, its crowdsourced feed where users can post and discuss scams, in India, with around 1,300 new reports added each week.

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