FTC reports 50% drop in unwanted call complaints since 2021

On Friday, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reported that the number of consumer complaints about unwanted telemarketing phone calls has dropped over 50% since 2021, continuing a trend that started three years ago.

This year, the FTC has received 1.1 million reports regarding robocalls, down from 1.2 million one year before 2023 and from more than 3.4 million in 2021.

According to this year’s National Do Not Call Registry Data Book—which provides the most recent data on robocall complaints together with a complete state-by-state analysis—the highest number of consumer complaints targeted unwanted calls about medical and prescription issues, with more than 170,000 reports (most of them robocalls) received until September 30, 2024.

“Reports about imposters comprised the second-most commonly reported topic, with consumers filing more than 158,000 complaints,” the FTC added.

“Complaints about debt reduction made up the third-most commonly reported topic, followed by complaints about energy, solar, and utilities and home improvement and cleaning.”

​As the FTC said today, this is the result of an ongoing crackdown on unwanted telemarketing calls. At its root is the FTC’s National Do Not Call (DNC) Registry, implemented in 2003 and designed to stop unwanted sales calls from actual companies that follow the law.

Since then, the registry has grown to 254 million active registrations in September 2024. Consumers can add their phone numbers online at donotcall.gov or by calling a toll‐free number (888‐382‐1222) from the telephone numbers they wish to register.

Unwanted telemarketing calls can also be reported by filling complaints at the same web address and calling the 1-888-382-1222 number. Sellers and telemarketers must remove numbers added to the DNC registry from their call lists at least every 31 days.

Last year, the agency also announced Operation Stop Scam Calls, a nationwide crackdown on illegal telemarketing targeting target individuals and entities behind billions of illegal calls and involved in selling over 700 million telemarketing leads.

The FTC also issued a rule banning the impersonation of government or businesses in 2024 and expanded the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) to protect businesses against illegal telemarketing campaigns.

Other ongoing efforts include clarifying that the TSR covers AI-enabled scam calls and a Voice Cloning Challenge to find new methods to make it more difficult to use artificial intelligence-driven tools like voice clones and audio deepfakes for fraud.