Spam phone calls down for the third straight year

Crackdown on spam calls pays off, with nuisance calls cut nearly in half in the past year, FTC reports in its annual round-up of enforcement activities. Image (c) ConsumerAffairs

Nuisance calls cut nearly in half in the past year, FTC reports

The Federal Trade Commission today released its annual Do Not Call Registry, showing that consumer reports about unwanted calls continue to drop for the third straight year, with complaint volume down by more than half since 2021.

“Illegal calls remain a scourge, but the FTC’s strategy to pursue upstream players and equip the agency to confront emerging threats is showing clear signs of success,” said Sam Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.

“In the years to come, it will be critical we continue this progress by confronting not only telemarketers but those firms who knowingly profit from scam calls,” Levine said.

The FTC has pursued a multifaced strategy to crack down on unwanted calls. In 2023, the agency announced Operation Stop Scam Calls, the largest crackdown on illegal telemarketing in the agency’s history.

This year, the agency issued a rule banning impersonation of government or business, and expanded the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) to protect businesses facing illegal telemarketing.

The FTC is also confronting emerging threats such as voice cloning, by launching a Voice Cloning Challenge and clarifying that the TSR covers AI-enabled scam calls.

The FTC’s data book provides the most recent fiscal year information available on robocall complaints, the types of calls consumers reported to the FTC, and a complete state-by-state analysis of the data.

According to this year’s edition, complaints unwanted calls about medical and prescription issues topped the list, with more than 170,000 reports—more than half of which were robocalls—received during the fiscal year ending on September 30, 2024.