President Trump has signed the TRACED ACT into law to try to help reduce the number of robocalls to American consumers. This bill was overwhelming passed by Congress in December, so it’s not a surprise.
While there are certainly high hopes that it will make a difference, it’s worth thinking about how to measure the impact of the TRACED ACT. At YouMail, our Robocall Index has been estimating the number of robocalls in the US each month for a little over four years.
This chart shows that the number of robocalls are increasing dramatically during the last four years. But more importantly, it shows that while robocall volumes bounce around quite a bit month to month, the overall trend keeps rising.
That means you can’t really look at month to month or even 2-3 month periods, since historically, every time they’ve dropped in the short-term, they keep going up in the long term.
What does this have to do with the TRACED ACT?
As exciting as the first significant anti-robocall law that we’ve seen in decades is, it’s important to remember that we won’t know if the TRACED ACT is working by simply looking at data for a few months. We’re going to need a better way to tell.
A much more interesting measure of robocall volume is the 12-month trailing average – how many robocalls have US consumers suffered through in the past year?
The longer period average tends to smooth our the month-to-month deviations, and we can see that what’s really happened is that robocall volume has actually has had 6-9 months of being fairly flat at a 58 billion robocalls/year pace, after a big spike the previous 18 months or so.
Said another way, since Spring 2019, things haven’t gotten worse, but they haven’t gotten better. Everyone’s efforts – carriers, government, third-party apps like YouMail – are simply keeping call volumes from exploding upwards.
What does all of this mean?
The right way to measure the impact of the TRACED ACT will not be month-to-month. Instead, it will seeing if the trailing 12 month curve of robocall volumes can start to bend down meaningfully, something it’s basically never done.
We’ll be watching closely. Stay tuned.
I appreciate your. Help I don’t know how to delete the calls and clear my account. Please advise thank you
Hello Hart!
Thank you for letting us know. We’ll have a support agent reach out to you via email to learn more and help you out.
ROBOCALLERS SHOULD BE PENALIZED & PROSECUTED TO THE FULLEST EXTENT OF THE LAW! THEY SHOULD LOSE NOT ONLY THE # THATS DOING THE ROBOCALLS, BUT ALL OTHER #S ASSOCIATED WITH THAT COMPANY, BECAUSE IF THEY LOSE 1#, THEY CAN ALWAYS GO TO USING ANOTHER #.
COMPANIES OR INDIVIDUALS THAT CALL A# AND DONT START A CONVERSATION WITHIN 5-10 SECONDS SHOULD RECEIVE THE SAME PENALTY AS ROBOCALLS!
COMPANIES/ INDIVIDUALS THAT ARE CAUGHT DOING MEDICARE/MEDICAL SCAMS SHOULD GET THE SEVEREST PENALTY & FINES ALLOWED BY LAW, ESPECIALLY IF FOUND TO INVOLVE A SENIOR CITIZEN OR A VETERAN.
Absolutely!!!
I firmly and totally agree! It is criminal what is happening in our country now
How do I get a call off of my blocked list. You have chosen to block s phone number that I need to be receiving. It is from a hospital for a transplant patient awaiting a call!!!
Hello Jayne!
We sincerely apologize for any inconveniences and thank you for your patience. It sounds like that number may have been spoofed enough to make it a serious risk. You can always add a number to your contacts to ensure that it gets through to you. If you don’t know the number but know you are awaiting an important call, you can also always turn off Call Blocking entirely temporarily. A support agent will be reaching out to you to help you with this issue as well as answer any questions you may have.
Stop the robo calls period.
The federal government is going to have to put pressure on countries that support and harbor these terrorist by listing them as such they open the door to capturing and or killing these communication terrorists no matter where they hide and or placing ads on the web with a reward would also help capture these fugitives.
Wanna bet that if they go after the companies they advertise for it would also stop overnight?
Dude. Chill.
Thank. You…your mail.com
My husband Dan & I appreciate ALL
your ‘efforts’ !
🤗 We ‘champion’ YOU!
Our pleasure, Suzanne!
Thank you for your kind words. We’ll keep working hard to stop robocalls.
I thought a law had been enacted in the state of North Carolina to STOP “spoofing” or taking over same-area phone numbers, but I am still receiving them. I simply NEVER answer a call that is not in my contacts.
That’s good practice, Susan! Hopefully we see those spoofed calls decrease, but it may not be as quickly or dramatically as we hope.
We can stop them from bothering you by silencing the ringer when scammers call, as well as blocking them from leaving a voicemail.
All that sounds really good but I disconnected from your service before I had it a month. Your robot told me that my disconnet was successful and you have no business answering a call much less what was said in the text to me from you…you have been doing it for the last year. I will be looking into this little situation. I am not happy with you saying I am still connected to your service. I will also look if you owe me money because I am almost positive you signed me up for a year when I told you I wanted monthly payments
Hello Donna!
We’re a bit confused by your comment, but we definitely want to make sure to resolve any issues. It sounds like perhaps you’re not fully deactivated and having issues with calls still going to YouMail?
We’ll have a support agent reach out to you via email to learn more and help you out. Looking forward to talking with you!
These caller are out of control. As a senior when get I call in middle of the night you will answer sometimes without thinking. You think is a family emergency.
We agree, robocalls are out of control! With 4.6 billion robocalls in December 2019 alone, they’re causing real problems and taking advantage of vulnerable people.
We’ll keep fighting the good fight and blocking those robocalls for our users.
What happened to allowing wildcards in blocked numbers? Is that going to be added back? It would be nice to be able to block all numbers within a certain exchange
Thank you for your question, Kevin! The wildcard feature should in theory be working. While it isn’t *officially* supported, we’ve heard of many users having success with it. Feel free to Live Chat us at support.youmail.com and mention this interaction to get help setting it up.
I uninstalled the app but am still getting calls through my gmail. I would like to just have voicemails go to my voicemail app. Please advise.
Thank you for reaching out to us, Debrah! We’ll have a support agent reach out to you via email so that we could learn more and help you out. Looking forward to getting to the bottom of this!
I have had this service for over a year and appreciate the great efficiency of YouMail. I have in addition to your service put my family and calls that are vital to me on a special ringtone. All other contacts and calls are on default. This eliminates being disturbed while I work and I don’t bother to answer calls that are not in my contacts. Those you don’t block are spoofs and if it’s important they need to leave a message.
Hello Teresa!
Thank you for your amazing review. It sounds like you are using our app exactly as intended. We’re thrilled to hear that you’re enjoying YouMail and that we’re able to help you out. If you ever have any questions, don’t hesitate to Live Chat us at support.youmail.com. Have a wonderful rest of your week.
I think your Company is doing a fine job, better than fine actually! I love having my calls go to you guys and my family and friends like the message they receive from you if I’m not able to answer. I don’t answer a caller who is not on my Contacts list and that is many, so I thank you for giving me my life back from the dang phone ringing incessantly.
Hello Gail!
Thanks for your kind words. We’re so glad to hear that you’re enjoying our app! We’ll keep working hard to improve and perfect our app. Have a wonderful day!
Since my info has been compromised in several major breaches, I’ve been using YouMail for a couple months. Before I was getting about 25-50 robocalls per day. Now my phone only rings 3-4 times per day and the rest get blocked or just hang up after hearing my message. Need a link from the app to search the phone numbers that initiate the calls.
We’re glad to hear that we could help stop those annoying robocalls for you. If you haven’t already, you can block even more calls by cranking up your call blocking to Maximum or Block Non Contacts and turning on Local Spam Protection (and on Android, International Spam Protection). As for searching phone numbers, if you go to the History tab in the app, then click into an entry, then tap More in the top right, then “Phone Lookup.”
Feel free to Live Chat us at https://support.youmail.com/hc/en-us with any questions!
I receive any where from 40 to 50 robot calls a day. I am a disabled senior and it is sometimes difficult to get to my phone. I won’t answer if it is not a contact number. I wish there was a way of stopping this terrible crime. I would appreciate anything that can be done to stop this bad annoyance.
Hello Judy! Thank you for your comment. That’s far too many robocalls per day! Have you checked out our free robocall blocking app? We stop the scam and spam calls from ringing your phone and leaving a message.
https://www.youmail.com/