U.S. Phones Received Nearly 4.4 Billion Robocalls in March, Says YouMail Robocall Index

March Robocall Volume Returned to Pre-Stir/Shaken Levels

IRVINE, Calif., April 6, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- In March, Americans received nearly 4.4 billion robocalls, putting 2022 on pace to hit 48 billion robocalls for the full year. This monthly call volume marked a 16.1% increase from February. However, because February has three fewer days than March, robocalls were actually up only 4.8% on a daily basis. Specifically, March averaged 140.8 million calls/day and 1630 calls/second, compared to 134.2 million calls/day and 1,554 calls/second in February.

March had roughly the same call volume as last June with 4.4 billion calls, meaning robocall volumes have essentially returned to where they were in the Spring of 2021, prior to rolling out new Stir/Shaken rules for call authentication. However, call volumes still have declined materially from the nearly 5 billion that occurred roughly a year ago, in March 2021, and are far below the 5.7 billion robocalls/month peak from October 2019.

"It's incredibly disappointing but not unexpected to see robocall volumes back where they were before the deployment of Stir/Shaken," said YouMail CEO Alex Quilici. "Robocalls continue to be a stubbornly hard problem, though the good news is that they are less of a problem than they were a few years ago."

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.

Most Unwanted Robocall in March

March's most unwanted robocall campaign is estimated to have been the source of tens of millions of robocalls from roughly 6,000 different numbers. The callers claim to be reaching people who qualify for "ObamaCare" health insurance policies. As in this example, callers appear to be violating a variety of telemarketing regulations, at a minimum, as they do not identify themselves, do not provide a call back number, and further appear to be calling people who did not give prior consent.   

Hello, we have been trying to reach you because you qualify for assistance to helps pay for your health insurance through marketplace. The government issued an emergency order reopening the health insurance marketplace, and in most cases your monthly premium will be from one dollar to $20 per month. Please press zero now to be transferred to a licensed agent. If we've reached you in error please press nine now to be removed.

In addition, last month's  loan approval scam robocall continues unabated at a roughly 100 million calls/month pace.

Unwanted Calls Jumped Dramatically in March 2022

In March the number of unwanted spam and scam calls increased dramatically, increasing by over 700 million calls for the month to nearly 2.4 billion, which constituted over 55% of all robocalls. Specifically, scam calls increased by 59% to 1.65 billion and telemarketing calls increased by 17% to 0.73 billion. On the other hand, robocalls that are likely more wanted, like Notifications and Payment Reminders, were down by approximately 100 million robocalls to just under 2 billion in the month.  

"Winners" in March 2022

In March, the same area codes and states that have had the most robocalls in recent months maintained their positions with one exception. Louisiana replaced South Carolina as the state with 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.  

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 protects consumers with app-based call protection services in the US and the UK, with the YouMail, Another Number, and Hullo Mail apps. YouMail protects consumer-facing enterprises by detecting and helping to shut down imposter traffic that can lead to financial or brand damage. We protect carriers with robocall mitigation services that detect when bad traffic is originating, traversing, or terminating on their networks. Our direct consumer 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. We also operate the YouMail Robocall Index™, 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.