The good news? The volume of robocalls is declining. The bad news? They still number just over 5 billion per month, according to YouMail.
The November total was down 11% from the previous decline, but, unfortunately the decline could have been due to the shorter calendar and Thanksgiving holiday, rather than any long-term trend. According to YouMail, U.S. consumers have received just under 54 billion robocalls already this year, with one month still to go. The single leading robocall campaign in November had well over 350 million calls, which by itself accounts for 7% of the total robocall volume.
In November, there was an average of more than 167 million robocalls per day, or 1,936 robocalls per second. Scam and telemarketing calls together combined for nearly 60% of the total robocall volume.
The top five annoying telemarketing and/or scam calls that people received in the U.S. during November are all related to illegal lead generation for health insurance, scams around lowered interest rates and illegal lead generation for debt reduction schemes, according to the research.
The U.S. House is considering an anti-robocall bill that has backing from both chambers, increasing the likelihood that legislation cracking down on the calls could reach President Trump’s desk before the end of the year.
“It’s nice to see November had fewer robocalls than October’s record, but we’re still over 5 billion robocalls per month, once again,” said YouMail CEO Alex Quilici, in a prepared statement. “We all would like to see a meaningful, steady reduction in the robocall volume, but that’s clearly not here yet.”