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Americans Received 4.6 Billion Robocalls in October
U.S. consumers received just over 4.6 billion robocalls in October, representing a 7.9% increase from September's volume
Nov. 13, 2023
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. That’s according to a new survey.
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 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.
| Type of Robocall | Estimated October Robocalls | Percentage October Robocalls |
| Notifications | 1.53 billion (+11.2%) | 33% (+1%) |
| Payment Reminders | 1.13 billion (+33.8%) | 25% (flat) |
| Telemarketing | 1.48 billion (+27.9%) | 10% (-8%) |
| Scams | 0.48 billion (-47.2%) | 28% (+7%) |
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.
| Cities with the Most Robocalls: | Atlanta, GA (181.0 million, +19%) Dallas, TX (174.7 million, +17%) Chicago, IL (151.8 million, +18%) |
| Cities with the Most Robocalls/Person: | Baton Rouge, LA (48.5/person, +17%) Memphis, TN (38.9/person, +12%) Washington, DC (35.4/person, +10%) |
| Area Codes with the Most Robocalls: | 404 in Atlanta, GA (75.7 million, +19%) 832 in Houston, TX (69.0 million, +18%) 214 in Dallas, TX (61.1 million, +16%) |
| Area Codes with the Most Robocalls/Person: | 404 in Atlanta, GA (61.9/person, +19%) 225 in Baton Rouge, LA (48.5/person, +18%) 901 in Memphis, TN (38.9, +12%) |
| State with the Most Robocalls: | Texas (583.1 million, +18%) California (409.3 million, +16%) Florida (373.8 million, +17%) |
| State with the Most Robocalls/Person: | Louisiana (29.8/person, +16%) South Carolina (28.2/person, +19%) Tennessee (23.2/person, +15%) |
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.