U.S. Consumers Received Just Over 4.6 Billion Robocalls in October, According to YouMail Robocall Index

Month Over Month Nationwide Robocall Volume Rises Nearly 8%

IRVINE, Calif., Nov. 7, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- U.S. consumers received just over 4.6 billion robocalls in October, representing a 7.9% increase from September's volume, as robocall volumes continue to oscillate between roughly 4.5 billion and 5 billion robocalls/month.

October averaged 148.7 million robocalls/day and 1,721 robocalls/second, up 4.4% from September's average of 142.4 million robocalls/day and 1,648 robocalls/second.

"October's increase comes as a small surprise following a large drop in calls from telemarketers over the previous month," said YouMail CEO Alex Quilici. "We need to follow the trendlines to determine if call volumes will continue to fluctuate, or whether we have reached a period of steadily growing illegal calls 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 September: Police Charity Scam

October's most unwanted robocalls are what appear to be sketchy charity solicitations, like this one claiming to be from the national police and trooper association:

Hello. This is national police and trooper Association. We're calling everyone to let them know the new drive is underway. Like always, your support will go to representing the needs of law enforcement officers whether that be for better equipment, more staff or fair wage. We also believe that the family of fallen officers should receive assistance. We are special project of the international Union of police associations. So if we send you out an envelope. Can we count on your non-tax deductible support and remember these many women put their lives on the line to make our community safer everyday we help.

There are tens of millions of these calls coming from thousands of different phone numbers. Like many of the other robocalling campaigns that are at scale right now, these calls work perfectly to take advantage of Apple's Live Voicemail, as the transcription that is displayed during the call creates a real sense of urgency, and it's very natural for the person called to pick up to learn more about this "charity".   

October's Unwanted Call Volume Saw Major Changes

Americans received nearly 2.4 billion unwanted scam and telemarketing calls in October, a significant increase from September. However, there was a significant change in the mix of calls for the month.

There appear to have been far fewer obvious scam calls in the month, with those scam calls down nearly 50%. This is in major part due to the Google Listing scam campaigns dropping significantly in volume, as well as a massive reduction in ERC Covid tax credit calls, coinciding with the IRS putting a moratorium on new claims.

At the same time, telemarketing calls went up 28% for the month. This rise appears to be due to a large increase in calls related to Medicare and Health Insurance, and around various types of debt reduction.  It's entirely possible that as these calls are investigated more thoroughly, many of them will turn out to be scam calls.

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 October 2023

The top cities, area codes, and states with the most robocalls and robocalls/person remained unchanged from September, though all were at considerably higher levels of robocalls.

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 [email protected].

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. 

Contact:
Gabriella Troiani for YouMail
Lumina Communications
[email protected]

SOURCE YouMail Inc.