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

US consumers received just over 4.5 billion robocalls in January, staying within the range of 4.2 billion and 4.7 billion calls per month we have seen since last August.

January volume marked a 5.7% increase from December’s volume. January averaged 145.5 million calls/day and 1684 calls/second, while December averaged 137.6 million calls/day and 1,593 calls/second.

“The big picture continues to be that the robocall volume in the US isn’t really changing, despite month- to-month variations, and despite stepped up enforcement efforts and the roll out of Stir/Shaken,” said YouMail CEO Alex Quilici. “It feels like recent mitigation efforts aren’t yet making a material dent in robocall volume overall, though we can see a trend toward fewer scam calls. It’s clear that consumers continue to need to protect themselves with robocall blocking apps like YouMail, since this problem is remarkably stubborn.”

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

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Most Unwanted Robocall in January: Camp Lejeune Compensation Scams

For the fourth month in a row, the most unwanted robocall campaigns involve a solicitation for potential medical compensation related to Camp Lejeune. The calls vary somewhat, and they come from a variety of different organizations including the “Plaintiff Advocate,” “Class Action Claims,” and others. They also now comprise a mix of calls, some of which appear to be following the law in terms of content of their calls, such as in this example:

It’s Jenny again from class action claims. You’ve suffered enough from the contaminated water at Camp Lejeune. Now it’s time to make government pay. Press one to get more details on how we may be able to help you. Press two and we’ll talk later. Press nine to be taken off our call list can also call 888-482-1296 to be removed from our list. Hello it’s Jen again from class action claims you suffered enough from the contaminated water at Camp Lejeune. Now it’s time to make the government pay. Press one to get more details on how we may be able to help you. Press two and we’ll talk later. Press nine to be taken off our call list. Hello this is Jim from Class Action Claims calling in regards to your inquiry about a lawsuit. If you’re ready to discuss this call us back at this number. If you like to opt out from receiving these calls please let us know by calling 888-482-1296.

There are others that are clearly violating a variety of telemarketing regulations. In all cases, however, these  calls appear to be calling people who did not give prior consent.

Together these robocalls appear to exceed over 100,000,000 calls/month and have come from tens of thousands of different numbers.

January Notched a Small Increase in Unwanted Calls

Americans received roughly 1.9 billion unwanted scam and telemarketing calls in January, an increase of roughly 200 million calls from December. Scam and spam robocalls together made up 43% of all robocall volume, up from 41% in December, far below the all-time highs when they made up 60-70% of all robocalls.

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.

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“Winners” in January 2023

There were some notable changes in the most robocalled cities and area codes during January. Washington, DC surpassed Macon, Georgia, to become the city with the third most robocalls/person. And the 857-area code in Boston, Massachusetts, had a 25% increase in call volume to surpass Memphis, Tennessee, as the area code with the third most robocalls/person.

These data points are provided by YouMail, a free call protection app for mobile phones. YouMail recently 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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