4.2 Billion Robocalls in August Set All-Time Record for YouMail Robocall Index
IRVINE, Calif., Sept. 10, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The U.S. public has been worn down by the stunning growth of the nation's robocalling problem over the past year, culminating in a new monthly record of 4.2 billion robocalls received nationwide in August, the highest number of robocalls ever recorded in a single month since the YouMail Robocall Index launched in 2015. The volume equals some 136.2 million calls placed every day during August, or 1,576 robocalls for every second of the month.
In the first eight months of this year, robocalls were up 33.2% to 28.5 billion total calls, compared to 21.4 billion in the first eight months of 2017. That steady increase has been due mainly to more Americans who have avoided answering their phones, causing the dialers to place still more calls in their efforts to get through.
Month Calls/Month Calls/Day Calls/Hour Call/Minute Calls/Second
----- ----------- --------- ---------- ----------- ------------
Aug.
2018 4.220 billion 136.1 million 5.67 million 94,548 1,576
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Jul.
2018 3.999 billion 129.0 million 5.37 million 89,603 1,493
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Jun.
2018 4.125 billion 137.4 million 5.72 million 95,479 1,591
---- ------------- ------------- ------------ ------ -----
May
2018 4.060 billion 130.9 million 5.45 million 90,961 1,516
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Apr.
2018 3.361 billion 112.0 million 4.66 million 77,802 1,297
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Mar.
2018 3.156 billion 101.8 million 4.24 million 70,695 1,178
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Feb.
2018 2.747 billion 98.1 million 4.08 million 68,149 1,136
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Jan.
2018 2.397 billion 92.7 million 3.86 million 64,408 1,073
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These latest monthly figures come from YouMail, a free robocall blocking solution for mobile phones. YouMail uses its patented smart blocking technology to block 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 of robocall volume across the country and in particular area codes each 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 Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as a definitive source for national data trends.
"As the cost of placing these calls approaches zero for many ruthless robocallers, there is little reason to expect this problem to decline anytime soon," said YouMail CEO Alex Quilici. "You wouldn't run your PC without antivirus software, so why would you run your mobile phone without a robocall blocking app?"
How Robocalls Break Down
Scam calls continued to grow In August, up to an estimated 1.76 billion robocalls, or nearly 42% of all robocalls made in the month, up from 1.44 billion robocalls in July. In contrast, there was a decline in Alerts and Reminder robocalls in August, the types of robocalls people usually want. These types of robocalls were down over 33% after fairly steady call volumes in recent months. The result is that a larger percentage of the overall robocalls are ones that people generally don't want.
Type of Robocall Estimated August Robocalls Percentage of August Robocalls
---------------- -------------------------- ------------------------------
Alerts and Reminders 667 million (-247 million) 16% (-7%)
-------------------- ------------------------- --------
Payment Reminders 1.03 billion (+96 million) 24% (+1%)
----------------- ------------------------- --------
Telemarketing 757 million (+22 million) 18% (flat)
------------- ------------------------ ---------
Scams 1.76 billion (+302 million) 42% (+6%)
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The top five scam types have changed dramatically over the course of the year. In August, the top five scams were Health Insurance Scams, Interest Rate Scams, Easy Money Scams, Search Listing Scams, and Home-Related Scams.
Rank Type of Scam Estimated August Robocalls Summary of Scam
---- ------------ -------------------------- ---------------
1 Health and Health Insurance
Scams 409 million Identify theft/scam payments
--- --------------------------- ----------- ----------------------------
2 Interest Rate Scams 146 million Identity theft
--- ------------------- ----------- --------------
3 Easy Money Scams 125 million Payments required to make
money
--- ---------------- ----------- --------------------------
4 Search Listing Scams 85 million Payment to maintain search
listing
--- -------------------- ---------- ---------------------------
5 Home-Related Scams 68 million "Free" home services that
aren't free.
--- ------------------ ---------- --------------------------
There has been an explosion of health and health insurance related scams (409 million) that use a variety of pretenses to collect personal information or payments for insurance that's never delivered or owed. There has also been a big increase in "Easy Money" scams, which are calls promising very simple ways to quickly make a lot of money, all of which tend to require an initial or ongoing monetary investment. However, as the school year begins, there has been a relative decline in student loan scams (no longer in the top five scams).
Who Gets The Most Robocalls
The best measure of the robocall problem is calls/person/month. The (404) area code in Atlanta was the #1 robocalled group, suffering through an average of 64 robocalls/person/month. The (202) area code in Washington DC was #2, with an average of nearly 49 robocalls/person/month. The (225) area code in Baton Rouge, Louisiana had residents who got more than 43/person/month.
30 Most Robocalled Area Codes Per Capita (August 2018)
Rank Area Code Location Est. Calls Received PerCapita/mo
1 404 Atlanta, GA 78,368,408 64.08
2 202 Washington, DC 27,558,336 48.62
3 225 Baton Rouge, LA 31,316,424 43.22
4 901 Memphis, TN 34,842,224 30.77
5 954 Ft. Lauderdale, FL 49,565,184 30.54
6 347 New York, NY 39,914,984 30.00
7 478 Macon, GA 17,453,808 29.24
8 571 Alexandria, VA 10,293,384 27.85
9 214 Dallas, TX 60,441,240 26.03
10 205 Birmingham, AL 35,354,136 25.55
11 501 Little Rock, AR 21,291,440 25.17
12 229 Albany, GA 14,107,104 24.35
13 504 New Orleans, LA 24,305,816 24.00
14 702 Las Vegas, NV 32,856,552 23.93
15 407 Orlando, FL 33,576,840 23.30
16 210 San Antonio, TX 32,130,896 23.10
17 337 Lafayette, LA 20,411,088 23.08
18 832 Houston, TX 64,310,104 23.04
19 512 Austin, TX 28,764,672 22.24
20 240 Baltimore, MD 23,737,296 22.07
21 704 Charlotte, NC 36,215,944 21.98
22 216 Cleveland, OH 23,606,512 21.78
23 813 Tampa, FL 24,998,776 21.62
24 912 Savannah, GA 18,348,312 21.44
25 803 Columbia, SC 30,117,408 21.29
26 251 Mobile, AL 13,563,960 20.86
27 843 Charleston, SC 28,239,584 20.82
28 314 St. Louis, MO 26,060,176 20.71
29 561 West Palm Beach, FL 25,345,256 20.41
30 318 Shreveport, LA 23,133,640 20.24
In terms of raw robocall volume, Atlanta topped the YouMail 50 Most Robocalled Cities in America list for the 33(rd) month in a row, as area residents received 187.1 million robocalls in August. Atlanta was followed by Dallas, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston - all cities that had well over 100 million robocalls each.
Top 30 Most Robocalled Cities (August 2018)
Rank City-Area Est. Calls Rec. Change (M:M) % Chg. Last Rank
1 Atlanta, GA 187,066,128 8,019,416 4% 1
2 Dallas, TX 161,965,978 9,827,586 6% 2
3 New York, NY 151,840,604 4,080,060 3% 3
4 Los Angeles, CA 145,133,574 7,434,126 5% 4
5 Chicago, IL 134,714,180 4,999,388 4% 5
6 Houston, TX 134,174,340 6,362,748 5% 6
7 Baltimore, MD 96,148,878 4,656,198 5% 7
8 Phoenix, AZ 81,576,572 6,744,700 9% 9
9 San Francisco Bay Area, CA 78,502,858 4,112,138 6% 10
10 Newark, NJ 78,413,206 3,095,774 4% 8
11 Philadelphia, PA 72,456,650 2,644,346 4% 11
12 Detroit, MI 68,687,410 1,566,914 2% 12
13 Miami, FL 58,886,904 1,713,312 3% 13
14 Ft. Lauderdale, FL 55,563,996 2,711,156 5% 14
15 San Diego, CA 49,643,108 1,300,852 3% 15
16 Charlotte, NC 44,585,964 2,742,892 7% 17
17 Riverside, CA 44,559,936 1,175,272 3% 16
18 Tampa, FL 43,854,288 2,892,056 7% 18
19 Seattle, WA 41,624,556 4,022,204 11% 19
20 Cleveland, OH 38,086,194 3,041,450 9% 23
21 Birmingham, AL 37,389,704 2,035,568 6% 21
22 Buffalo, NY 37,254,262 2,090,446 6% 22
23 Las Vegas, NV 36,929,876 3,835,180 12% 27
24 New Orleans, LA 36,756,356 951,308 3% 20
25 Denver, CO 36,662,848 1,853,808 5% 25
26 Orlando, FL 36,638,266 3,061,426 9% 26
27 Memphis, TN 36,081,556 1,239,332 4% 24
28 Sacramento, CA 35,881,526 3,803,822 12% 30
29 Augusta, GA 33,516,834 1,810,010 6% 33
30 Baton Rouge, LA 32,890,716 1,574,292 5% 35
For more information about the YouMail Robocall Index or to view the monthly reports, please visit http://robocallindex.com. To join the YouMail Robocall Index mailing list, please write to RobocallIndex@YouMail.com.
About YouMail, Inc.
YouMail, Inc. is the leading provider of intelligent, cloud-based telecommunication services. The company's flagship service provides an automated virtual receptionist that replaces the subscriber's voicemail on iPhone, Android, and Windows phones. This service stops robocalls, and delights other callers by instantly greeting, routing, and responding to them, personally and memorably, and even provides free conference calls YouMail also provides data on problematic phone number behavior, through a reverse phone lookup service that allows anyone to identify and comment on suspicious numbers, an application program interface (API) that any telecom service provider or third-party developer can use to determine whether a number is problematic, and the YouMail Robocall Index(TM), which since its launch in in September 2015 has emerged as the nation's definitive source on robocalling data for telecom carriers, smartphone and app companies, and public policymakers. Headquartered in Irvine, Calif., YouMail, Inc. was founded in 2007 and is privately funded.
Contact:
Keya Balar for YouMail
Lumina Communications
YouMailPR@luminapr.com
646-791-9600
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SOURCE YouMail, Inc.
