U.S. Consumers Received Just Over 4.5 Billion Robocalls in April, Down 9% from March, According to YouMail Robocall Index

Recent YouMail Robocall Brand Imposter Survey Also Shows That 200 Million Americans Have Been Scammed for More Than $40 Billion

IRVINE, Calif., May 4, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- U.S. consumers received just over 4.5 billion robocalls in April, back in the range of 4.2 billion to 4.7 billion calls recorded per month from August through February. The April volume marked a welcome 9% decrease from March's volume.

This continued robocall assault on Americans has led to significant financial losses for the American consumer. A recent YouMail survey suggested that imposter scam calls alone have reached over 200 million Americans across all demographic groups, not just older adults. These scams have led to over $40 billion in direct financial losses and have left many Americans unlikely to answer their phone even for potentially legitimate calls.

"April's decrease in the robocall volume is nice to see after the spike we saw in March," said YouMail CEO Alex Quilici. "Still, the overall volumes of robocalls remain high, and consumers still need to protect themselves with robocall blocking apps like YouMail because the problem is not magically going away."

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.

The most unwanted robocall campaign in April was a telemarketing call that appears to be pitching ways for businesses to get significant funds for employees they kept on payroll during the pandemic. The calls leave the identical voicemail message from "Amber Walton" as in this example:

Can you give me a call back? Hi, it's Amber Walton again with the follow-up message from Refundem. It's Wednesday the 12th. Can you give me a call back when you receive this message at 844-726-7702? It still appears like your business would possibly receive up to $26,000 for every employee you kept on payroll during the years of 2020 and or 2021. Again, this is not a loan, so you do not have to pay the money back. I can be reached at 844-726-7702. That's 844-726-7702. Thanks, and I look forward to talking with you soon. Have a great day. ...

This call comes from tens of thousands of different numbers, and it appears to be in the many tens of millions of calls made each month. Further, this call appears to be violating various telemarketing regulations, as well as calling numerous people who did not give prior consent and do not have any business relationship with this firm.

Americans received just over 2 billion unwanted scam and telemarketing calls in April, down roughly 10% from March, primarily due to a large 15% drop in telemarketing calls while scam calls were flat. Notification and payment reminders also decreased significantly in the month.

Some calls initially viewed as telemarketing are eventually recognized 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 continues to reduce 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. 

The top cities, area codes, and states with the most robocalls and robocalls/person remained mostly unchanged from March. The one exception is that Boston's 857 as the area code replaced Memphis as the area code with the third most robocalls per person, and it did so by remaining flat in the number of robocalls while Memphis experienced a 10% decline for the month.

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].

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.

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