Consumers in the United States received 2.3% fewer robocalls in November than in October, according to the YouMail Robocall Index, which estimates robocall volume nationwide and in specific area codes.
YouMail said that consumers received slightly more than 4.5 billion robocalls during the month, which is below the year’s monthly average of about 4.7 billion robocalls. November’s average was 150.2 million robocalls per day and 1,738 robocalls per second.
The most common unwanted robocalls involved pre-recorded messages soliciting the purchase of Medicare insurance. YouMail said that tens of millions of this type of call were sent from thousands of different phone numbers. Some complainants had received five or six of these calls per day.
“It’s good news that November’s volume is essentially flat with October and it falls below the average volume for the year,” YouMail CEO Alex Quilici said in a press release. “We should be encouraged that these illegal calls are not growing quite so rapidly as we enter the holiday season.”
YouMail said that roughly 1.95 billion unwanted scam and telemarketing calls were received in November, which marked one of the lowest volumes of the year. Scam calls alone, however, increased by 7.7% in November.
For the month of November, notification robocalls were approximately 1.45 billion, down 5.2%. They were followed in volume by telemarketing at 1.44 billion robocalls (down 1.8%); payment reminders at 1.10 billion (down 3.1%); and scams at 0.51 billion (up 7.7%).
The cities, states, and specific area codes that stood out with the highest volume of robocalls during November included:
- Cities with the most robocalls: Atlanta, Dallas and Houston
- Cities with the most robocalls per person: Baton Rouge, La., Memphis, Tenn. and Macon, Ga.
- Area codes with the most robocalls: 404 (Atlanta), 832 (Houston) and 214 (Dallas)
- Area codes with the most robocalls per person: 404 (Atlanta) ,225 (Baton Rouge) and 901 (Memphis)
- States with the most robocalls: Texas, California, Florida
- States with the most robocalls per person: Louisiana, South Carolina and Tennessee
YouMail provides a free robocall-blocking app through which it extrapolates its findings. The company said that in October, 4.6 billion robocalls were received by U.S. consumers. That represented a 7.9% increase compared to September.
