U.S. Consumers Received Just Under 4.3 Billion Robocalls in September, According to YouMail Robocall Index

Nationwide Robocall Volume Drops Almost 16% From August Peak

IRVINE, Calif., Oct. 6, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- U.S. consumers received just under 4.3 billion robocalls in September, representing a 15.7% decrease from August's volume and the lowest monthly volume since December 2022.

September averaged 142.4 million robocalls/day and 1,648 robocalls/second, down 13.1% from August's average of 163.8 million robocalls/day and 1,896 robocalls/second. 

"September's big drop is a pleasant surprise, and in large part it appears to be due to a large drop in calls from telemarketers," said YouMail CEO Alex Quilici. "This is a welcome development, but it remains to be seen whether this drop in robocalls is just a blip or will continue over the next few months."

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: Google Search Listing Scam

September's most unwanted robocalls continued to be Google Listing scam calls, which reached Americans at a pace in the range of 100 million calls/month. Variants of these calls have been made all year long from tens of thousands of different numbers, but with what appears to be increasing volumes as the months go by. These calls appear to be targeting potential business owners with a scam based on threatening to pull their business listings from Google like in this example:

This is an important call from Search Local about your Google Business profile. Our record shows your profile is either not verified or missing important information keeping your customers from finding you. Press 1 now so we can verify your Google Business profile. If you're the business owner, press 1 now. If your account is not verified, customers searching for your services on Google may not find your listing. Press 1 now to verify your listing. Press 2, or call 877-594-1885 and search local will remove you from this list.

These scam calls work perfectly to take advantage of Apple's Live Voicemail, as the transcription that is being displayed during the call creates a real sense of urgency, and it's very natural for the person called to press 1 to find out more about what's happening and suddenly be engaged with the scammer.

The volume of these calls continues to increase, so it's likely that these scam calls are likely getting good results for the scammers, and that Live Voicemail is potentially helping them execute their scam calls more effectively. 

September's Unwanted Call Volume Stayed Steady

Despite a large drop in robocalls overall, Americans received over 2 billion unwanted scam and telemarketing calls in September, a similar volume to August. However, there was a change in the mix of likely unwanted calls, with telemarketing calls down nearly 13% while scam calls were up 21%. Further, there was a large change in what are traditionally thought of as wanted calls, as the volume of notifications and payment reminders dropped 23.5% and 30.5% respectively. 

The most likely explanation is that the FTC's recent actions around third-party lead generation have led to a reduction in telemarketing calls, and many calls that appear to be notifications or payment-related reminders may actually be or have been a disguised form of telemarketing. 

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 September 2023

The top cities, area codes, and states with the most robocalls and robocalls/person remained unchanged from August, though all were at considerably lower 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:

Rohan Notaney for YouMail
Lumina Communications
[email protected]

SOURCE YouMail Inc.