US Consumers Received 4.3 Billion Robocalls in February, According to YouMail Robocall Index

Robocall Volume Remains in Similar Range of Past Six Months Despite Increased Enforcement

US consumers received just over 4.3 billion robocalls in February, staying within the range of 4.2 billion and 4.7 billion calls per month we have seen since last August. The February volume marked a 4.0% decrease from January’s volume.

February averaged 154.6 million calls/day and 1,790 calls/second, while January averaged 145.5 million calls/day and 1,684 calls/second. This means February actually saw about a 6.3% increase in robocalls on a daily basis, but had fewer robocalls overall because it has 3 fewer days in the month than January.

Over the past 12 months, Americans have received 51.5 billion robocalls.

“Robocall volumes have been very steady for nearly a year,” said YouMail CEO Alex Quilici. “Consumers still need to protect themselves with robocall blocking apps like YouMail, since this problem is remarkably stubborn, despite the efforts of enforcement, carriers, and others.”

These latest figures are provided by YouMail, a totally free robocall blocking app and call protection service for mobile phones. The figures are determined by extrapolating from the robocall traffic attempting to get through to YouMail’s millions of active users.

Most Unwanted Robocall in February: Health Insurance Telemarketing

The most unwanted robocall campaign for this month is a telemarketing call that appears to be selling low-cost health insurance. The calls leave the identical voicemail message from “Kelly from Support First,” as in this example:

Hi, this is Kelly with Support First calling about your free or subsidized Health Insurance. Please call me back toll free at 844-306-0130 to see if you qualify and again that’s 844-306-0130. Call now.

This call comes from tens of thousands of different numbers, and it appears to be exceeding 50 million calls/month and violating various telemarketing regulations, as well as calling people who did not give prior consent.

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February’s Unwanted Call Volume Was Similar to January

Americans received roughly 1.9 billion unwanted scam and telemarketing calls in February, roughly the same volume as in January. Notification and payment reminders declined by about 150 million calls during the month, accounting for most of the decline in call volume.

Some calls initially viewed as telemarketing are eventually recognized as illegal telemarketing or scam calls, so it’s important to measure the overall quantity of scam and spam calls combined. A scam call is one that has clearly illegal or fraudulent behavior, such as a call from an enterprise imposter, or one that has a spoofed caller ID. Stir/Shaken continues to reduce the number of robocall campaigns based on spoofed IDs, which drives down the number of obvious scam calls by making them harder to detect, since they appear to be telemarketing campaigns unless there is other evidence of fraud.

“Winners” in February 2023

The top cities, area codes, and states with the most robocalls and robocalls/person remained unchanged from January.

These data points are provided by YouMail, a free call protection app for mobile phones. YouMail won the American Business Awards’ Gold Stevie Award for Technical Innovation of the Year, and the YouMail app was named the nation’s best robocall-blocking solution in a competition organized by Geoffrey Fowler of the Washington Post.

YouMail blocks unwanted robocallers by making sure the user’s phone doesn’t ring, and then plays an out-of-service message that leads them to think they dialed an invalid number. YouMail identifies problematic numbers and robocalls using a combination of its recently patented audio fingerprinting technology, call patterns, and consumer feedback.

YouMail provides the YouMail Robocall Index to estimate robocall volume across the country and for specific area codes every month. This estimate is formed by extrapolating from the behavior of the billions of calls YouMail has handled for its users, and these statistics are regularly cited by the FCC as a definitive source for national data trends.

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