April Robocall Volume Down Nearly 10% After March Spike

IRVINE, Calif. /PRNewswire/ — In April, Americans received over 3.9 billion robocalls, keeping 2022 on pace to hit 48 billion robocalls for the full year, averaging roughly 4 billion robocalls a month. This monthly call volume marked a 9.7% decrease from March. Because April has one fewer day than March, robocalls were actually down 6.7% on a daily basis. Specifically, April averaged 131.4m calls/day and 1,521 calls/second, compared to 140.8 million calls/day and 1,630 calls/second in March.

“It’s always nice to see a month with lower robocall volume, but we’ve seen that before, only to be followed by spikes in call traffic,” said YouMail CEO Alex Quilici. “We’re on pace for at most a small decline from last year’s robocall volume, despite the rollout of STIR/SHAKEN.”

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 April

April’s most unwanted robocall campaign is estimated to have been the source of tens of millions of robocalls from tens of thousands of different numbers. The callers are selling what appears to be an extended warranty or service contract. 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. Here is the call transcript:   

Hi, this is Mark with an important message about your automobile service contract.  It seems like the time to renew or extend your service contract has expired or will be expiring shortly. If you would like to keep coverage or to extend it, press eight to speak to a customer service agent and go over options for us. Press the number nine if you are declining coverage or wish not to be reminded again.

Most Types of Robocalls Declined In April 2022

In April, the number of unwanted spam and scam calls shrunk dramatically, with almost 300 million fewer calls than in March, a welcome change following last month’s 700 million robocall spike. In addition, there were also 150 million fewer notifications, though these calls are generally wanted alerts and reminders. Only payment reminders had a very slight increase for the month,

“Winners” in April 2022

In March, the same area codes and states that have had the most robocalls in recent months maintained their position. The exceptions are that Houston’s 832 took over second place from Dallas’s 214 area code in terms of area code volume, and South Carolina traded places with Alabama as the state with the second 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 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. 

SOURCE YouMail Inc.

TNC

Rod Washington:  Rod is a blogger, writer, filmmaker, photographer, daydreamer who likes to cook. Rod produces and directs the web series, CUPIC: Diary of an Investigator. He also produces news and documentary video projects. Check out his podcast StoriesThisMoment at https://m3e.d71.myftpupload.com/stm-tncn-podcasts/

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