Do You Pick Up Spam Calls?

Dear Reader,

Shantanu, who’s 22, has been getting spam calls for years.

At first, they were manageable. Two or three calls a day at most. He used to block them, which sometimes helped. Or he’d just ignore the calls. 

A few months ago, he took the CAT exam. Since then, the calls have exploded.

Shantanu suspects the coaching centre he registered at may have shared his number.

“I get 15 to 20 calls a day now,” he told me. “They’re very annoying. Colleges call me offering scholarships. I understand they’re doing their jobs too, but I’ve had enough.”

Shantanu is not alone.

Truecaller’s reports consistently rank India among the most spammed countries in the world. In 2025 alone, Indians received over 4,000 crore spam calls.

And that’s despite the fact that India has regulation to curb spam.

India’s telecom regulator, TRAI, has introduced several frameworks to curb unwanted calls. Companies that send promotional calls must register. Telemarketers must use designated number series. Consumers can also register on the Do Not Disturb (DND) list to opt out of promotional communication.

TRAI has also strengthened rules under its Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations and introduced digital consent systems to track whether companies actually have permission to contact users.

Yet the calls keep coming.

Part of the problem is scale. Millions of calls move through telecom networks every day. Many spam callers rotate numbers. Others use cloud telephony or third-party marketing vendors.

Enforcement then becomes reactive.

Cybersecurity expert Amit Jaju takes a tougher view.

“How is spam still happening today? If they wanted to stop it, they would have stopped it long ago. Regulators and operators play a ping pong game, and we are the ball.”

He says consumers can fight back.

His top tips: Use an AI assistant to screen calls. Set up call forwarding so your AI bot chats with the spammer’s bot—most hang up fast.

He also swears by three separate SIMs to compartmentalise:

• One SIM only for banks and serious financials, no sharing.

• One “burner” SIM for every random sign-up, OTP, or form. Keep it switched off most of the time. Spam piles up there, but it never rings your main phone.

• One clean SIM for family and trusted contacts. Set it to accept calls only from saved numbers.

Spam drops to near zero this way.

Do these steps feel extreme? Maybe. But if spam disrupts your day or risks your data, they work.

I explore the data ecosystem and economics of spam in the latest episode of The Signal Brief. 

You can find The Signal Brief on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

Thank you once again for listening and supporting us. We’d love to hear from you; write to us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram or X at @thesignaldotco.

Best,
Kudrat
on behalf of The Core

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