Report: 858 Robocalls Placed Every Second, Most Of Them From Debt Collectors

[allheart55 (Cindy E)]

How many unwanted pre-recorded and/or autodialed calls have you received so far this year? Judging by the numbers in one new report, we’re guessing it’s a lot.



According to the latest YouMail National Robocall Index, some 2.3 billion robocalls were placed in January alone. That comes out to around seven robocalls for every single person the country, or 858 robocalls placed every second of every day.

Not surprisingly, most of the biggest robocallers are trying to collect some sort of debt. Fifteen of the 20 most frequent robocallers in the January Index were debt collection calls. Just these fifteen numbers placed close to 175 million calls in a single month.

In terms of which markets are receiving the most robocalls, Atlanta had both the highest number of total robocalls (approximately 99.6 million) received in January and the highest per capita rate in an area code, with 36 robocalls received for every person in the 404 area code.

Dallas, home to AT&T, was a distant second in total robocalls (79.6 million), followed by Chicago (77.9 million), Houston (74.6 million), and New York City (66.3 million).

The other area codes with high per capita robocall rates were Baton Rouge, LA (31 calls per capita for the 225 area code), Washington, D.C. (25 calls per capita in the 202 area code), Memphis (20 calls per capita in the 901 area code) and Macon, GA’s 478 area code, 19 calls per capita.

YouMail also notes the 46% spike in robocalls in Iowa and the similar 55% jump in New Hampshire, as politicians geared up for those states respective preliminary presidential showdowns. Likewise, the South Carolina markets of Charleston and Columbia saw significant increases in robocall traffic.

It should be noted that YouMail, which provides independent voicemail and call-blocking services, does have a commercial interest in tallying and publicizing these numbers. Our colleagues at Consumers Union have been pushing the nation’s biggest phone providers to give customers a free and simple way to filter out nuisance robocalls.

While there are numerous ways for telecom providers to offer this sort of feature to customers, the industry has been incredibly reluctant.

Time Warner Cable, which provides VoIP phone service to millions of customers did recently break step with its older peers by integrating the free Nomorobo robocall-blocker into its service.

Source: consumerist

 

[Bill M.]

That's pretty amazing. I have had none that I'm aware of. My landline is unlisted and I don't answer the cell if I don't recognise the caller.

 

[AWS]

You probably get them and just never answered them.

Any phone number that I don't recognize gets blocked. I've been doing this for a while. I used to get 3 or 4 a day. Now I might get 1 every week or so.

 

[allheart55 (Cindy E)]

I get them all of the time on my cell phone.
Strange voices asking for people by names that I don't know.

 

[N3]

I also receive calls asking for people. I tell the caller(s) that the person expired. The caller(s) generally tell me they're sorry for my loss & hang up, or just hang up. My technique may appear cruel but it minimizes random calls.

 

[Tony D]

I used to get about 6-10 each day. Now I get just a few each week. What changed you may ask? I subscribed to NoMoRobo.com.

This only works if your phone company provides a Simultaneously Ring feature. With that feature, you can set it so that any phone call that comes in will also ring another phone or two. It's usually used to ring your cell phone in addition to your landline. What you do is configure it so that when a call comes in it also goes to NoMoRobo.com. If they determine that the call is a robo call, they answer it. Your phone rings only once.

I don't know what happens when they answer the call, but it has greatly reduced the number of robo calls I receive.

The NoMoRoBo service is free.