(ECNS) -- Harassment and scam calls related to air tickets surged ahead of the National Day holiday, according to Chubao Technology, a Shanghai-based smartphone app developer.
The company said in an analysis released Tuesday that it had intercepted 32.2 billion harassing phone calls in China from August 2015 to July 2016, 90 million per day on average. Among the scams, those involving air ticket refunds and changes rose to 40 percent from 26 percent on ordinary days, it noted.
Telephone numbers making harassing calls usually have average lifespans of just 6.61 days, with each number calling 255 users, but the top offender harassed more than 1.2 million users, the report showed.
While sales promotions accounted for 30 percent of harassing calls in this period, scam calls increased to 15.9 percent. Among them, finance and wealth management fraud had the largest share at about 40 percent. In addition, scam calls in the name of another individual or organization also jumped to 26.3 percent.
Incoming calls ringing only once and then disconnecting saw a slight fall compared to the previous year to 24.3 percent. But the report warned users against returning such calls to prevent possible financial loss.
