ORLANDO, Fla. – November robocalls connected nearly 5.1 billion times last month, a sign that consumers better get used to the unwanted recorded offers and deals that keep smartphones buzzing.
YouMail CEO Alex Quilici told News 6 the volume equaled 169.6 million calls placed every day in November and seems to be the “new normal” in the world of robocalls.
“It’s the same five that have been driving everybody nuts, although the numbers are varying a bit,” Quilici said.
Quilici said the top phone scam, without question, is the health insurance scam, followed by interest rate scams, student loan scams, easy money scams for jobs that don’t exist and finally, Google listings.
Areas in the South continued to receive the most robocalls in November, with Orlando’s 407 area code reporting more than 45 million calls, with additional area codes bringing the city’s total to more than 64 million calls.
Quilici told News 6 there is new evidence that many of the calls originate from India.
During the holiday of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, there was a major drop in IRS scam calls reported to YouMail.
According to Quilici, the decrease was in the range of 90 percent, “unheard of” in his view and compelling evidence that a majority of the calls are coming from India.
According to the YouMail data, the cities, area codes and states with the highest volumes of robocalls in November were very similar to last month.
Miami, Ft. Lauderdale and Orlando were ranked 13, 14 and 15 respectively, while Atlanta was ranked No. 1 with 213 million robocalls.
Below is a timeline showing robocall volumes since the start of 2018:
Month Calls/Month Calls/Day Calls/Hour Call/Minute Calls/Second
Nov. 2018 5.09 billion 169.6 million 7.1 million 117,764 1,963
Oct. 2018 5.11 billion 164..9 million 6.9 million 114,544 1,909
Sept. 2018 4.41 billion 147.0 million 6.1 million 102,060 1,701
Aug. 2018 4.22 billion 136.1 million 5.7 million 94,548 1,576
Jul. 2018 4.00 billion 129.0 million 5.4 million 89,603 1,493
Jun. 2018 4.12 billion 137.4 million 5.7 million 95,479 1,591
May 2018 4.06 billion 130.9 million 5.5 million 90,961 1,516
Apr. 2018 3.36 billion 112.0 million 4.7 million 77,802 1,297
Mar. 2018 3.16 billion 101.8 million 4.2 million 70,695 1,178
Feb. 2018 2.75 billion 98.1 million 4.1 million 68,149 1,136
Jan. 2018 2.88 billion 95.8 million 34.0 million 64,408 1,073
“I think you’re going to see the carriers do more to try and block these calls,” Quilici said. “That’s a complicated process, so for now, consumers can use apps like YouMail to intercept the unwanted calls."
For a full ranking of cities, states and area codes, as well as details on the behavior of robocallers in each area code, go to robocallindex.com. To join the YouMail Robocall Index mailing list, please write to RobocallIndex@YouMail.com.