Product1 publisher3 min readPublished
Truecaller opens its scam reports to anyone with a browser
Truecaller launched Scam Checker, a free web and Android tool that checks a pasted number, link or message for fraud with no app or sign-in. Caller names still need an account, so the page doubles as a way into an app whose caller-ID business is under pressure in India.
The Product Desk · Product desk
What happened
- ScamFeed, the crowdsourced feed Scam Checker draws on, holds about 20,000 live scam reports in India, with around 1,300 new ones added each week, according to Truecaller.
- For links, the service expands shortened URLs and follows redirects to the final page, then checks the result against Truecaller's proprietary risk database and other fraud signals.
- The tool starts in India and is set to expand to Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, and Southeast Asia, the company said.
- India is Truecaller's largest market, with more than 350 million users, and operators there are rolling out a government-backed caller-name service as Apple and Google add their own caller ID.
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Why it matters
- capability Someone without the app, such as a parent handed a suspicious text, can get a verdict without installing anything or creating an account.
- constraint ScamFeed's live pool in India equals about 15 weeks of new reports, so a scam link sent this morning may have no community report yet and has to be judged on the risk database alone.
- decision Truecaller hands verdicts to any browser while objecting to handing spam reports to carriers. The web page can send users back to its app. Truecaller called the regulator's order a "one-way exchange".
- exposure Operators' Calling Name Presentation service is built to show caller names, the one detail Scam Checker still keeps behind a Truecaller sign-in.
Rishit Jhunjhunwala, Truecaller's chief executive, describes the person Scam Checker is for in plain terms. "When you need it, you're usually somewhere else. 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?'" he said. "What people do in that moment is search." [10]
Truecaller estimates that people make about 14 million web searches a month to check suspicious links and phone numbers. It based the figure on search volumes and traffic to existing verification services [9]. Jhunjhunwala told TechCrunch that this habit shaped the product [9]. By Truecaller's own estimate, a worried user leaves the chat and types into a search box [9].
The channels explain why. In a 2025 GSMA survey of Indian adults, 46% of those who reported being scammed said they were approached through messaging apps, 37% via SMS and 32% through voice calls [8]. Voice, the channel caller ID was built for, came last of the three [3]. "Caller ID was the first problem we solved, and it's still how most people find us," Jhunjhunwala said. "But scams moved to a more multi-channel approach with links and messages, and increasingly to voice and video. Our protection has to follow the scammer." [16]
The product Truecaller has shipped is narrower than that: a free verdict with related community reports attached, and a sign-in for anything more [3][4]. TechCrunch describes the tool as lead generation for the app. It adds that the reports could help the fraud and risk products Truecaller for Business sells to enterprises [6]. Jhunjhunwala said Scam Checker itself is aimed at consumers [6].
The automated side works at a much larger scale. Truecaller said it evaluated 12.9 billion messages worldwide between September 14 and 20 and flagged 20.3 million as fraudulent, about one in every 635 [12][2]. Those are global figures and the ScamFeed counts are for India, so the two cannot be compared directly.
India's regulator wants the community reports too. Last week it ordered caller-ID apps to share user-submitted spam reports with telecom operators, and Truecaller criticized the order as a "one-way exchange" [15].
For a team deciding what to put in front of a sign-in wall, two tests sort the options. The first is whether the free layer answers the question the user arrived with. The second is whether each free query adds to the data behind the wall. If a tool passes both, the free layer adds to what the wall protects. Passing only the first makes it marketing paid for with data the company already holds, and that is worth it only if enough users want the gated detail. A tool that passes only the second has users adding to the database without getting an answer, and they eventually stop coming. Scam Checker passes the first test at launch [2]. On the second, TechCrunch's account does not say whether a pasted link or message becomes a ScamFeed report or goes into the risk database [17]. Two figures would settle it: the share of people who check a link and later sign in, and the share who come back.
What to watch
- Whether Truecaller confirms that links and messages pasted into Scam Checker feed ScamFeed or its risk database.
- How Truecaller complies with the regulator's order to share user-submitted spam reports with operators, and whether ScamFeed posts fall under it.
- The planned screenshot upload, since a forwarded screenshot is one of the cases Jhunjhunwala described.