Switzerland logs 148 million unwanted phone calls

More than 148 million unwanted telephone calls in 2026 Keystone-SDA

So far this year, Swiss telephone operators have already taken action on more than 148 million unwanted calls. Such abuse tends to increase further towards the end of the year.

Swisscom has recorded 102 million calls involving ‘spoofing’ (telephone number spoofing) or spam, the operator told the Keystone-ATS news agency. Of these, 65 million were blocked and 30 million anonymised. A warning was displayed for a further seven million calls.

On Thursday, Sunrise stated in a press release that it had blocked, anonymised or flagged more than 46 million calls between January and August. This is around a fifth more than last year.

Salt is also rolling out a mechanism to combat unwanted calls. This blocks, on average, around two in five incoming calls.

In particular, operators are combating ‘spoofing’, a technique that involves displaying a fake or manipulated telephone number. Since the start of the year, calls from abroad displaying a potentially falsified Swiss number must either be blocked or forwarded with the message ‘unknown caller’.

Cat and mouse game

The effectiveness of these measures is diminishing as fraudsters change the numbers very quickly, according to Salt. Sunrise provides figures on this: between January and August, more than 10 million calls from abroad were flagged due to suspected impersonation or misuse of a Swiss number.

According to Sunrise, the volume of unwanted calls tends to increase towards the end of the year, largely due to the expiry of contracts and insurance policies.

Swisscom, for its part, has decided not to disclose specific details, to prevent fraudsters from exploiting the information. “The fight against ‘spoofing’ remains a game of cat and mouse,” a Swisscom spokesperson said.

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Translated from French, reviewed by an English Department journalist.