U.S. Phones Received over 4.7 Billion Robocalls in November, Says YouMail Robocall Index

So far in the first 11 months of this year, US consumers have received some 46.1 billion robocalls, and the country continues on pace to hit 50.3 billion robocalls for the full year, just under last year's 50.5 billion total robocalls.

"Robocalls continue to slowly increase, despite stepped up enforcement and the roll out of Stir/Shaken," said YouMail CEO Alex Quilici. "It just shows the importance of those mitigation efforts, since without them the robocall problem would likely be much worse. It also suggests that consumers continue to need to protect themselves with robocall blocking apps like YouMail, since the problem is just not going to magically go away."

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.

For the second month in a row, the most unwanted robocall campaign involved a solicitation for potential medical compensation related to Camp Lejeune, as in this example. This campaign appears to have made nearly 100 million robocalls in November from thousands of different numbers. Like many other illegal telemarketing or scam calls, they appear to be violating a variety of telemarketing regulations, as they do not immediately identify the entity making the call, do not provide a call back number, and appear to be calling people who did not give prior consent. Here is the call transcript:

"Please listen carefully. You may have potential compensation due to you if you would like to opt out, please press one immediately. Once again, if you would like to opt out, please press one immediately. This message is in regards to Camp Lejeune. If you or anyone you know visited Camp Lejeune from August 1^st, 1953 through December 31st, 1987 and developed medical complications, diseases and medical issues, you were likely due compensation due to being exposed to toxic water and contamination. To join to get compensation simply press two to speak to a case specialist. Once again this is for anyone you know that attended Camp LeJeune between from August 1^st, 1953, through December 31^st, 1987 and developed medical complications, diseases and other medical issues, you were likely due compensation. Press two to speak to a case specialist." "

Americans received roughly 2.4 billion unwanted scam and telemarketing calls in November, an increase of 150 million from October. Notifications and reminders each increased roughly 5% for the month, which appeared to be a mix of political "get out of the vote" reminder robocalls and an increase in reminders to people behind on credit cards or other payments. One bright spot is that scam and spam robocalls together now make up under 47% of all robocall volume, continuing the recent downward trend. Another positive trend is that the volume of obvious scam calls appeared to go down 5%, although telemarketing calls were up over 8%.

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 has 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. 

There was only one change to the cities, area codes, and states getting the most robocalls in November, as Atlanta's 678 overlay area code swapped places with Dallas's 214 code as the 3^rd most robocalled area code. In addition, most of the top locations generally fell in line with the roughly 7% overall increase in robocalls this month, with a few exceptions like the cities of Dallas, Baton Rouge, and Memphis that were relatively flat, and the city of Houston, Texas, and the state of Florida, both of which saw 10% jumps.

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].

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.