Americans received 26.3 billion robocalls last year and the numbers are still climbing

Robocalls are the absolute worst, and unfortunately, they’re not getting any better. In fact, they’ve nearly doubled in the amount that was made compared to 2017.

According to a new report from The Wall Street Journal, Americans were bombarded with 26.3 billion robocalls last year, that’s 46 percent more calls than 2017. Sure, these calls suck, but the good news is that most people are simply not picking them up as much as they used to, according to spam monitoring service Hiya.

If you’re wondering how folks are getting your number for the sole purpose of spamming you, honestly, we have no clue. Back in 2003, a Do Not Call Registry was established to prevent this sort of thing, but it’s obvious that this registry isn’t working.

Last year, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) told The Verge that they receive about 500,000 complaints a month regarding robocalls. 500,000 complaints! Yea, that’s a lot. It’s even getting to the point where consumers are filing lawsuits under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) if they get these sort of calls while being listed on the Do Not Call Registry.

As robocalls get smarter, services continue to offer prevention methods

The messed up part about all of this is that robocallers are getting a whole lot smarter and sophisticated by calling you from genuine looking phone numbers. The good thing is that there’s a handful of services and apps like Nomorobo,  RoboKiller, and Hiya – which prevent these calls from ever making your phone ring. Additionally, a large number of the major mobile carriers have systems in place that act as a roadblock between you and these robocallers.

On top of all these preventative measures, the FCC is coming down on mobile carriers and putting the pressure on them to figure this all out. They’re even pushing them to implement the SHAKEN / STIR protocol, which is basically a system that validates a phone call to make sure a call is genuine before it is delivered to the recipient.

From the sound of all this, it seems like robocalls aren’t going away anytime soon. And that sucks, given the fact that I get about 3-4 of these a day. They’re annoying, and I really hope they figure this mess out sooner than later.

Do you get robocalls? Do you want them to stop? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• Quickly block spam calls with Castle, the anti-robocall app
• The terrible person behind millions of robocalls has been fined $120 million
• AT&T subscribers get more robocalls than any other wireless carrier
• Verizon will finally make its spam protection tools free for all customers
• Why you should know who is ACTUALLY calling you

Kevin Raposo

Kevin is KnowTechie's founder and executive editor. With over 15 years of blogging experience in the tech industry, Kevin has transformed what was once a passion project into a full-blown tech news publication. Shoot him an email at kevin@knowtechie.com or find him on Mastodon or Post.