After more than a decade building a caller ID service for more than 500 million users, Truecaller is now bringing its accumulated scam intelligence to the open web, where anyone can check for fraud without needing an account.
The Swedish firm launched Scam Checker on Sunday. The new web and Android service lets users paste a phone number, URL or message to see if it is fraudulent. It pulls relevant reports from Truecaller’s community feed, ScamFeed. However, full details such as the name linked to a number remain behind the sign‑in‑required core service.
The no‑signup tool is initially available in India and will expand to Latin America, the Middle East & Africa and Southeast Asia, the company said.
Community reports serve double duty: they act as lead generation for the app and give Truecaller deeper insight into ongoing scams. This intelligence can also feed the fraud‑ and risk‑management products sold to enterprises through Truecaller for Business. Nonetheless, the tool itself is aimed at consumers, according to CEO Rishit Jhunjhunwala.
Scam Checker works by expanding shortened URLs and following redirects to the final destination, then cross‑checking the destination against its proprietary risk database and other fraud signals. Users can also submit a suspicious message, from which the service extracts phone numbers or links and surfaces related community reports.
The launch reflects the evolution of scams, which now extend beyond voice calls to text messages, messaging apps and web links. A 2025 GSMA survey of Indian adults found that 46 % of respondents who were scammed were approached via messaging apps, 37 % via SMS and 32 % via voice calls.
Truecaller estimates that people perform about 14 million web searches each month to verify suspect links and numbers, based on its analysis of search volumes and traffic to existing verification services. That behavior shaped the design of Scam Checker, CEO Rishit Jhunjhunwala told TechCrunch.
“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?’” Jhunjhunwala said. “What people do in that moment is search.”
Truecaller’s community feed, ScamFeed, is a key source of detection. In India the feed contains roughly 20 000 live scam reports, with about 1 300 new reports added each week. Between September 14 and 20 the company said it evaluated 12.9 billion messages globally and flagged 20.3 million as fraudulent.
Looking ahead, Truecaller plans to broaden the range of detectable scams and add the ability to upload screenshots for further analysis.
The move beyond pure caller ID reflects mounting pressure on Truecaller’s core business in India, its largest market with over 350 million users. Competing caller‑ID and spam‑protection features from telecom operators, Apple and Google, together with new regulatory requirements for apps to share spam reports, are reshaping the landscape. “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.”
