Nationwide Robocall Volume Decreased Roughly 2% Month Over Month
IRVINE, CA - December 7, 2023 - U.S. consumers received just over 4.5 billion robocalls in November, representing a 2.3% decrease from October's volume, and below this year's average volume of roughly 4.7 billion robocalls/month. November averaged 150.2 million robocalls/day and 1,738 robocalls/second, up 1% from October's average of 148.7 million robocalls/day and 1,731 robocalls/second.
"It's good news that November's volume is essentially flat with October and it falls below the average volume for the year," said YouMail CEO Alex Quilici. "We should be encouraged that these illegal calls are not growing quite so rapidly as we enter the holiday season."
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 November: Medicare Insurance Spam
November's most unwanted robocalls are high-volume telemarketing robocall campaigns that are leaving pre-recorded messages, like this one:
Hi, this is Jeremy with Assurance IQ. I'm following up on your Medicareplan.com request for Medicare plans. Our call is being recorded and in case we get disconnected, you can reach us at 1-844-975-1678 to be removed from our call list. Hi, I'm calling from Assurance IQ responding to your request on our website, Medicareplan.com for Medicare plans. I want to connect you to a licensed insurance agent for free, no obligation, consultation. You can reach us at 1-844-696-1669. Look forward to helping you.
Tens of millions of these calls are coming from many thousands of different phone numbers. These Medicare robocalls are resulting in numerous user spam reports and complaints that they never requested these calls or gave their consent for them, and that they are receiving as many as 5 or 6 calls per day.
November's Unwanted Call Volume Was Roughly Unchanged
Americans received roughly 1.95 billion unwanted scam and telemarketing calls in November, near the lowest volume of the year. However, scam calls did increase by 7.7% for the month, reversing recent trends.
Further, as in the past, some calls initially viewed as telemarketing are eventually identified 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 contains clearly illegal or fraudulent behavior, such as a call from an enterprise imposter, or one that has a spoofed caller ID. Stir/Shaken's deployment appears to have materially reduced 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 November 2023
The top cities, area codes, and states with the most robocalls and robocalls/person remained mostly unchanged from October. The changes included Houston moving into 3rd place, replacing Chicago, in the cities with the most robocalls. And Macon, Georgia replaced Washington, DC as the city in 3rd place with the most robocalls per person.
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.
For a full ranking of cities, states and area codes, as well as details on the behavior of robocallers in each area code, please see http://robocallindex.com. To listen to actual voice messages left by robocallers, please visit the YouMail Directory. To join the YouMail Robocall Index mailing list, please write to RobocallIndex@YouMail.com.
About YouMail, Inc.
YouMail protects consumers, enterprises, and carriers from harmful phone calls. YouMail provides US and UK consumers app-based call protection services through the YouMail, Another Number, and HulloMail apps. These solutions answer over a billion live calls per year across well over 10 million registered users, powering America's most robust telephone sensor network in identifying and providing zero-hour protection against illegal calling campaigns and cyberattacks. YouMail Protective Services leverages this sensor network to protect consumer-facing enterprises by detecting and helping shut down imposter traffic that can lead to financial or brand damage, as well as to protect carriers with robocall mitigation services that detect and help stop bad traffic originating, traversing, or terminating on their networks. This sensor network is also used to provide the YouMail Robocall Index™ is the nation's definitive source on telephone network activity and attacks. YouMail, Inc. is privately funded and based in Irvine, California.