Every year, when South Africa shifts into festive mode, something more unsettling shifts beneath the surface of our national mood.
“Dezemba” may symbolise celebration, homecomings, bonuses, and travel, but it has also
become synonymous with something darker: a dramatic rise in scam calls, phishing messages, and impersonation attempts that leave South Africans anxious, cautious, and increasingly reluctant to answer their phones.
According to the South African Banking Risk Information Centre, fraud
incidents in the country have increased by 32% year on year.
SA one of most targeted markets
Meanwhile, Accenture’s Digital Trust and Safety Report shows that 68% of South Africans have experienced an attempted scam in the past 12 months.
These numbers place South Africa among the world’s most targeted markets for mobile-based fraud, and the trend intensifies between November and January, precisely when families are distracted, financially stretched, and communicating more than usual.
What makes festive season scams so effective is how neatly they mirror our
lives in December.
Families are coordinating cross-country travel; courier deliveries double; stokvel groups release their annual savings; students return home; gig workers complete their final jobs; and small businesses try to close the year on a financial high.
In this atmosphere of rapid communication and heightened emotion, scammers exploit people’s trust, urgency, and fatigue.
A call claiming that your bank card is blocked feels believable when you’ve been shopping online all week.
A message about a delayed delivery seems plausible when half of your Black Friday orders are still in transit.
This erosion of trust has created a communication crisis.
South Africans are now increasingly hesitant to answer calls from unknown numbers, even when those calls might come from legitimate couriers, banks, insurers, employers, or
service providers.
This mistrust affects more than personal safety; it disrupts small businesses, reduces customer service efficiency, and fractures the everyday communication networks that hold communities together.
Rebuilding trust is essential
Scammers are also becoming more sophisticated. The Interpol Global Crime Trend Report notes a rise in AI-generated voice impersonation, caller ID spoofing, and automated scam call centres that can scale attacks far faster than before.
Yet AI is also becoming one of our most powerful defensive tools. Caller ID apps’ AI models analyse patterns from billions of calls and messages globally to detect suspicious behaviour, identify emerging fraud tactics, and flag high-risk numbers before the recipient even answers.
The result is a rapidly evolving safety layer that grows stronger as communities report and verify suspicious callers.
That’s where rebuilding trust, verification, transparency, and digital literacy
become essential.
Tools like caller ID apps help people understand who is calling and why, giving
them the context needed to make safer decisions.
The caller ID relies on a combination of AI, community reporting, and number verification systems to identify unknown callers, flag high-risk behaviour, and warn users in realtime.
It’s a safety layer built from millions of small acts of collective intelligence.
Message scanning happens locally on the device, not in the cloud. These choices matter in a world where AI models often depend on large and opaque data flows.
But technology alone can’t solve this. Trust is built in daily habits, checking before clicking, pausing before sharing personal information, warning family members, especially older relatives, and insisting on proof before believing claims made under pressure.
Emotional and financial vulnerability collide
With December being a time when emotional and financial vulnerability collide, and the smallest lapse in vigilance possibly leading to devastating consequences, digital literacy is the equivalent of locking your doors.
When communities actively report suspicious numbers, they protect one another. And when technology and literacy work together, South Africans regain the power to make informed decisions.
The festive season should be a time of connection, not caution.
To make that possible, we must approach communication safety as a shared responsibility.
This responsibility should be rooted in transparency, technology, and collective vigilance, with consumers, businesses, telcos, and technology platforms all playing a role.
If we can re-establish trust in who is contacting us and why, we can reclaim December
as a time of joy, rather than anxiety, and ensuring that the people we love stay protected from those who exploit the season’s spirit.
When people trust the real call, connection strengthens; when connection strengthens, communities thrive; and when communities thrive, South Africa becomes safer for everyone.
Zvobwo, Director: Market Development, Truecaller South Africa
