4.2 Billion Robocalls in August Set All-Time Record for YouMail Robocall Index

Robocalls Rise 5.2% Over the Prior Month, and 45.3% Over August of One Year-Ago

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Sep 10, 2018, 09:05 ET

IRVINE, Calif., Sept. 10, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The U.S. public has been worn down by the stunning growth of the nation's robocalling problem over the past year, culminating in a new monthly record of 4.2 billion robocalls received nationwide in August, the highest number of robocalls ever recorded in a single month since the YouMail Robocall Index launched in 2015. The volume equals some 136.2 million calls placed every day during August, or 1,576 robocalls for every second of the month.

In the first eight months of this year, robocalls were up 33.2% to 28.5 billion total calls, compared to 21.4 billion in the first eight months of 2017. That steady increase has been due mainly to more Americans who have avoided answering their phones, causing the dialers to place still more calls in their efforts to get through.

Month	Calls/Month	Calls/Day	Calls/Hour	Call/Minute	Calls/Second
Aug. 2018	4.220 billion	136.1 million	5.67 million	94,548	1,576
Jul. 2018	3.999 billion	129.0 million	5.37 million	89,603	1,493
Jun. 2018	4.125 billion	137.4 million	5.72 million	95,479	1,591
May 2018	4.060 billion	130.9 million	5.45 million	90,961	1,516
Apr. 2018	3.361 billion	112.0 million	4.66 million	77,802	1,297
Mar. 2018	3.156 billion	101.8 million	4.24 million	70,695	1,178
Feb. 2018	2.747 billion	98.1 million	4.08 million	68,149	1,136
Jan. 2018	2.397 billion	92.7 million	3.86 million	64,408	1,073

These latest monthly figures come from YouMail, a free robocall blocking solution for mobile phones. YouMail uses its patented smart blocking technology to block 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 of robocall volume across the country and in particular area codes each 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 Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as a definitive source for national data trends.

"As the cost of placing these calls approaches zero for many ruthless robocallers, there is little reason to expect this problem to decline anytime soon," said YouMail CEO Alex Quilici. "You wouldn't run your PC without antivirus software, so why would you run your mobile phone without a robocall blocking app?"

How Robocalls Break Down

Scam calls continued to grow In August, up to an estimated 1.76 billion robocalls, or nearly 42% of all robocalls made in the month, up from 1.44 billion robocalls in July. In contrast, there was a decline in Alerts and Reminder robocalls in August, the types of robocalls people usually want. These types of robocalls were down over 33% after fairly steady call volumes in recent months. The result is that a larger percentage of the overall robocalls are ones that people generally don't want.

Type of Robocall	Estimated August Robocalls	Percentage of August Robocalls
Alerts and Reminders	667 million (-247 million)	16% (-7%)
Payment Reminders	1.03 billion (+96 million)	24% (+1%)
Telemarketing	757 million (+22 million)	18% (flat)
Scams	1.76 billion (+302 million)	42% (+6%)

The top five scam types have changed dramatically over the course of the year. In August, the top five scams were Health Insurance Scams, Interest Rate Scams, Easy Money Scams, Search Listing Scams, and Home-Related Scams.

Rank	Type of Scam	Estimated August Robocalls	Summary of Scam
1	Health and Health Insurance Scams	409 million	Identify theft/scam payments
2	Interest Rate Scams	146 million	Identity theft
3	Easy Money Scams	125 million	Payments required to make money
4	Search Listing Scams	85 million	Payment to maintain search listing
5	Home-Related Scams	68 million	"Free" home services that aren't free.

There has been an explosion of health and health insurance related scams (409 million) that use a variety of pretenses to collect personal information or payments for insurance that's never delivered or owed. There has also been a big increase in "Easy Money" scams, which are calls promising very simple ways to quickly make a lot of money, all of which tend to require an initial or ongoing monetary investment. However, as the school year begins, there has been a relative decline in student loan scams (no longer in the top five scams).

Who Gets The Most Robocalls

The best measure of the robocall problem is calls/person/month. The (404) area code in Atlanta was the #1 robocalled group, suffering through an average of 64 robocalls/person/month. The (202) area code in Washington DC was #2, with an average of nearly 49 robocalls/person/month. The (225) area code in Baton Rouge, Louisiana had residents who got more than 43/person/month.

30 Most Robocalled Area Codes Per Capita (August 2018)
Rank	Area Code	Location	Est. Calls Received	PerCapita/mo
1	404	Atlanta, GA	78,368,408	64.08
2	202	Washington, DC	27,558,336	48.62
3	225	Baton Rouge, LA	31,316,424	43.22
4	901	Memphis, TN	34,842,224	30.77
5	954	Ft. Lauderdale, FL	49,565,184	30.54
6	347	New York, NY	39,914,984	30.00
7	478	Macon, GA	17,453,808	29.24
8	571	Alexandria, VA	10,293,384	27.85
9	214	Dallas, TX	60,441,240	26.03
10	205	Birmingham, AL	35,354,136	25.55
11	501	Little Rock, AR	21,291,440	25.17
12	229	Albany, GA	14,107,104	24.35
13	504	New Orleans, LA	24,305,816	24.00
14	702	Las Vegas, NV	32,856,552	23.93
15	407	Orlando, FL	33,576,840	23.30
16	210	San Antonio, TX	32,130,896	23.10
17	337	Lafayette, LA	20,411,088	23.08
18	832	Houston, TX	64,310,104	23.04
19	512	Austin, TX	28,764,672	22.24
20	240	Baltimore, MD	23,737,296	22.07
21	704	Charlotte, NC	36,215,944	21.98
22	216	Cleveland, OH	23,606,512	21.78
23	813	Tampa, FL	24,998,776	21.62
24	912	Savannah, GA	18,348,312	21.44
25	803	Columbia, SC	30,117,408	21.29
26	251	Mobile, AL	13,563,960	20.86
27	843	Charleston, SC	28,239,584	20.82
28	314	St. Louis, MO	26,060,176	20.71
29	561	West Palm Beach, FL	25,345,256	20.41
30	318	Shreveport, LA	23,133,640	20.24

In terms of raw robocall volume, Atlanta topped the YouMail 50 Most Robocalled Cities in America list for the 33^rd month in a row, as area residents received 187.1 million robocalls in August. Atlanta was followed by Dallas, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston – all cities that had well over 100 million robocalls each.

Top 30 Most Robocalled Cities (August 2018)

Rank	City-Area	Est. Calls Rec.	Change (M:M)	% Chg.	Last Rank
1	Atlanta, GA	187,066,128	8,019,416	4%	1
2	Dallas, TX	161,965,978	9,827,586	6%	2
3	New York, NY	151,840,604	4,080,060	3%	3
4	Los Angeles, CA	145,133,574	7,434,126	5%	4
5	Chicago, IL	134,714,180	4,999,388	4%	5
6	Houston, TX	134,174,340	6,362,748	5%	6
7	Baltimore, MD	96,148,878	4,656,198	5%	7
8	Phoenix, AZ	81,576,572	6,744,700	9%	9
9	San Francisco Bay Area, CA	78,502,858	4,112,138	6%	10
10	Newark, NJ	78,413,206	3,095,774	4%	8
11	Philadelphia, PA	72,456,650	2,644,346	4%	11
12	Detroit, MI	68,687,410	1,566,914	2%	12
13	Miami, FL	58,886,904	1,713,312	3%	13
14	Ft. Lauderdale, FL	55,563,996	2,711,156	5%	14
15	San Diego, CA	49,643,108	1,300,852	3%	15
16	Charlotte, NC	44,585,964	2,742,892	7%	17
17	Riverside, CA	44,559,936	1,175,272	3%	16
18	Tampa, FL	43,854,288	2,892,056	7%	18
19	Seattle, WA	41,624,556	4,022,204	11%	19
20	Cleveland, OH	38,086,194	3,041,450	9%	23
21	Birmingham, AL	37,389,704	2,035,568	6%	21
22	Buffalo, NY	37,254,262	2,090,446	6%	22
23	Las Vegas, NV	36,929,876	3,835,180	12%	27
24	New Orleans, LA	36,756,356	951,308	3%	20
25	Denver, CO	36,662,848	1,853,808	5%	25
26	Orlando, FL	36,638,266	3,061,426	9%	26
27	Memphis, TN	36,081,556	1,239,332	4%	24
28	Sacramento, CA	35,881,526	3,803,822	12%	30
29	Augusta, GA	33,516,834	1,810,010	6%	33
30	Baton Rouge, LA	32,890,716	1,574,292	5%	35

For more information about the YouMail Robocall Index or to view the monthly reports, please visit http://robocallindex.com. To join the YouMail Robocall Index mailing list, please write to [email protected].

About YouMail, Inc.
YouMail, Inc. is the leading provider of intelligent, cloud-based telecommunication services. The company's flagship service provides an automated virtual receptionist that replaces the subscriber's voicemail on iPhone, Android, and Windows phones. This service stops robocalls, and delights other callers by instantly greeting, routing, and responding to them, personally and memorably, and even provides free conference calls YouMail also provides data on problematic phone number behavior, through a reverse phone lookup service that allows anyone to identify and comment on suspicious numbers, an application program interface (API) that any telecom service provider or third-party developer can use to determine whether a number is problematic, and the YouMail Robocall Index™, which since its launch in in September 2015 has emerged as the nation's definitive source on robocalling data for telecom carriers, smartphone and app companies, and public policymakers. Headquartered in Irvine, Calif., YouMail, Inc. was founded in 2007 and is privately funded.