Are YOU plagued by robocalls? Study reveals spam calls almost doubled in the last year with a record breaking 26.3 billion recorded in 2018!
A new report from Hiya said Americans received 26.3 billion spam calls last year
People receive an average of 10 spam calls per month, often from telemarketers
The barrage of spam calls has increasingly led people to not answer the phone
Robocalls really are on the rise.
A new report from caller ID service Hiya found that Americans received a whopping 26.3 billion spam calls in 2018.
That marks a 46 percent increase from 2017, when users logged about 18 billion robocalls.
The report highlights the growing issue of invasive phone calls - a problem legislators and Silicon Valley tech giants have recently moved to crack down on.
What's more, as people in the U.S. get a barrage of spam calls, many are increasingly choosing not to answer the phone at all.
'As our phones continue to be inundated by robocalls, many people no longer want to pick up the phone at all,' Hiya CEO Alex Algard told The Washington Post.
However, not all automated calls are bad; some may be alerting users that their prescriptions are ready at the drug store, or could concern important notifications from their bank.
When users don't answer the phone under the fear or receiving a robocall, they can often miss out on important calls, according to the Post.
In its analysis, Hiya found that people received an average of about 10 spam calls per month.
People received about 60 incoming calls from 'unrecognized numbers or numbers not linked to a person in their contact list,' the Post noted.
The top area codes that were targeted by spam callers in 2018 were Texas cities including Dallas, San Antonio, Austin and Fort Worth.
Of the spam calls received, most of them were 'general spam,' followed by fraud, telemarketers and robocallers.
'Unsolicited robocalls are the #1 source of consumer complaints to the Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission,' Hiya said.
'This incessant problem is only getting worse due to a lucrative profit motive for scammers.'
The FTC has backed up this claim, recently telling The Verge that it deals with about 500,000 user complaints about robocalls each month.
Why did the government shutdown lead to rise in ROBOCALLS?
Many federal agencies, including the FTC and FCC, were closed during the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.
The shutdown lasted between December 22nd and January 25th - a total of 35 days.
During that time, users saw a spike in robocalls, as scammers tried to cash in on the government shutdown.
Users who attempted to register with the Federal Trade Commission's Do Not Call Registry were unable to as a result of the shutdown.
The Do Not Call Registry is a database of phone numbers who do not want to be contacted by telemarketers.
The website came back online once the shutdown ended, but during the time that the FTC and FCC were closed, their websites were down as well.
It meant that consumers couldn't receive warnings about robocall scams and the offices couldn't record consumer complaints, according to the Washington Post.
Nomorobo, a call blocking service, saw a 'severe' rise in the number of consumer complaints during the shutdown.
One frightening scam in particular warned users in a voicemail that the 'recent government shutdown is affecting [their] standing with the IRS.'
Robocalls have become so common that a 2018 report predicted almost 50 percent of all mobile calls will be scam calls this year.
Telecom providers and the FCC have taken steps to put an end to incessant robocalls.
The FCC is increasingly calling on carriers to adopt the staken/shir method, a protocol that would attach a certificate of authenticity to each phone number, adding an extra layer of verification.
T-Mobile has said it will bring the protocol to its users soon, while AT&T, Verizon and Sprint have said they will also adopt it.
Community Forum
Topic: Are YOU plagued by robocalls? (Read 1150 times)