The FTC says spam call complaints are way down since 2021

Complaints about unwanted telemarketing calls have dropped for the third straight year, the Federal Trade Commission announcedyesterday. Reports of such calls have fallen by over 50 percent versus 2021, according to the FTC — a decline that could be thanks in no small part to stepped-up government efforts to fight irritating telemarketing and phone scams.

There were about 33,000 fewer unwanted call complaints during the 2024 fiscal year versus the year prior, writes the FTC. The drop affected all sorts of unwanted calls, although the agency writes that reports about debt reduction calls had jumped “more than 85 percent from last year.”

FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection Director Sam Levine said that while illegal calls are still “a scourge,” he credited “the FTC’s strategy to pursue upstream players and equip the agency to confront emerging threats” with the reduction in complaints.

As for what the FTC has actually been doing, it points to its crackdowns on illegal telemarketing last year, and its rules that ban the impersonation of governments or businesses. The agency also cites its Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR), which places a number of restrictions on telemarketers — like when they can make their calls — and its clarification that the TSR applies to scam calls that use AI, too.

Last year, the FTC banned those extended vehicle warranty scams that many of us are familiar with. That ban followed the Federal Communication Commission’s proposal of a $300 million fine over one such campaign.

The FCC has played a part in other ways, too. The biggest US mobile carriers started complying with a new anti-spoofing protocol aimed at verifying that the phone number shown on consumers’ caller ID was actually the one that called them. The FCC also banned AI-generated robocalls, has cracked down on robocallers / robotexters that don’t let people opt out, and requires cell carriers to block likely-illegal robotexts.