Truecaller takes its rip-off intelligence to the open internet because it seems to be past caller ID

After greater than a decade constructing a caller ID industry serving over 500 million users, Truecaller is now taking the rip-off intelligence it gathered alongside the way in which to the open internet, with no app or sign-in required.

The Swedish firm on Sunday launched Scam Checker, a brand new internet and Android service that lets customers paste in a suspicious telephone quantity, hyperlink, or message to search out out if it’s fraudulent. To work, the service surfaces associated reviews from Truecaller’s neighborhood, ScamFeed. However, extra detailed details about a telephone quantity, together with the identify related to it, stays accessible solely by Truecaller’s present service, which requires a sign-in.

The free-to-access device will initially be accessible in India and is about to increase to Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, and Southeast Asia, the corporate stated.

In addition to serving as lead technology for its app, the neighborhood reviews can provide Truecaller a greater view of the scams circulating at a given time. This might additionally assist the corporate with its fraud and danger merchandise offered to enterprises by Truecaller for Business, though Jhunjhunwala stated Scam Checker itself is geared toward shoppers.

To work, Truecaller’s Scam Checker checks the hyperlink the person submits, increasing shortened URLs and following redirects to the ultimate vacation spot. It then checks these towards its proprietary danger database and different fraud alerts. Users may paste a suspicious message, permitting the service to select a telephone quantity or hyperlink and floor associated reviews from the Truecaller neighborhood.

The launch comes as scams have grown nicely past telephone calls to textual content messages, messaging apps, and internet hyperlinks. In a 2025 GSMA survey of Indian adults (PDF), 46% of those that reported being scammed stated they had been approached by messaging apps, whereas 37% by way of SMS and 32% by voice calls.

Truecaller estimates that folks make about 14 million internet searches a month to test suspicious hyperlinks and telephone numbers, primarily based on its evaluation of search volumes and visitors to present verification providers. That conduct helped form Scam Checker, CEO Rishit Jhunjhunwala informed TechCrunch.

“When you want it, you’re often elsewhere. The hyperlink exhibits up on WhatsApp. Your mum will get a message a few visitors fantastic. A buddy forwards you a screenshot and asks, ‘Is this actual?’” Jhunjhunwala stated. “What folks do in that second is search.”

Truecaller’s neighborhood is changing into a vital piece of its scam-detection effort. The firm informed TechCrunch that about 20,000 rip-off reviews are dwell on ScamFeed, its crowdsourced feed the place customers can submit and talk about scams, in India, with round 1,300 new reviews added every week. Between September 14 and 20, the corporate additionally stated it evaluated 12.9 billion messages globally and flagged 20.3 million as fraudulent.

In the close to future, Truecaller says it plans to broaden the kinds of scams Scam Checker can detect and add screenshot uploads for additional evaluation.

The firm’s push past caller ID comes as its core industry faces new pressures in India, its largest market with greater than 350 million customers. Telecom operators are rolling out the federal government-backed Calling Name Presentation service, whereas Apple and Google have added their very own caller identification and spam-protection options. Last week, India’s telecom regulator additionally ordered caller-ID apps to share user-submitted spam reviews with telecom operators, a transfer Truecaller criticized as a “one-way exchange.”

As a outcome, Truecaller’s focus is evolving past caller ID.

“Caller ID was the primary drawback we solved, and it’s nonetheless how most individuals discover us,” he stated. “But scams moved to a extra multi-channel strategy with hyperlinks and messages, and more and more to voice and video. Our safety has to observe the scammer.”