RealCall released a Pig Butchering Scam Report on November 30, one month after the release of Quarterly Report on Scam Calls for Q3 of 2022.
Pig Butchering Scam is the topic RealCall has been expecting to dig into since a long time ago because such reports on such a topic have been released by any organization even including FTC.
The main conclusions drawn from the report include:
- 96.08% of respondents have already or almost been trapped by pig butchering scams that have been rampant today.
- 40.4% of victims claim their first contact with scammers was via anonymous calls and texts and 25.7% of them via dating websites.
- The common scam awareness used to avoid ordinary types of scams may not be useful when it comes to pig butchering scams because they conform to a different scheme from ordinary ones.
- Blocking anonymous calls and texts efficiently and effectively boosts immunity against pig butchering scams.
The conclusions are made based on a survey of 996 RealCall users, interviews with scam victims, former scam sweatshop workers, advocates, rescue workers, etc., and some research in numerous channels.
In this report, the term “pig butchering scam” has been defined with the following features.
Among all the 996 respondents returning their questionnaires, 474 respondents (235 male and 239 female) claim they have truly gone through pig butchering scams and economic losses while 483 respondents (242 male and 241 female) almost fell into the traps of pig butchering scams. Some of them didn’t identify a scam until they were advised to invest in cryptocurrency and some of them refused to meet in person all the time based on numerous reasons.
40.4% of victims claim their first contact with scammers was via anonymous calls and texts and 25.7% of them via dating websites.
This report also indicates the reasons why ordinary scam awareness fails to effectively avoid pig butchering scams, including:
- Ordinary scammers aim to proactively cheat people but pig butchering scammers never do. They would rather “feed” the “pig” for a long time.
- Pig butchering scammers are patient and “nice” enough to expect their “pig targets” to grow big enough.
- Ordinary scammers always persuade victims to act immediately but pig-butchering scammers never do.
The end of the report also provides tips for anyone to be able to effectively avoid pig butchering scams:
- Block anonymous calls and texts
- Stay alert about cryptocurrency investment
- Don’t be ashamed to share your experiences or report to corresponding organizations
- A golden rule to keep in mind: when there’s something too good to be true, it must be a scam.
A full version of this report is provided below.