Spam, Scam And Robocalls At 6-Year High Despite Laws To Stop Them

It is not just your phone blowing up daily with a steady stream of text messages and voicemails — out-of-the-blue loan offers in calls that may not be illegal but are predatory; outright lies that the IRS is on your heels but can be stopped if you call back immediately; or, worse, urgent calls that seem to feature a loved one saying something terrible will happen to them if you don’t arrange for a wire transfer right now.

You name it, there is a scam for it. Some prey on people financially. Others are emotonally abusive. Whatever the mtoive, robocalls, spam calls and scam calls reached a six-year high in 2025 — despite federal laws aimed at stopping them, according to new reports.

About 2.56 billion of these calls are placed every month, compared to 2.14 billion a month in 2024, according to YouMail, one of the country’s largest robocall blocking companies.

A new report from the consumer advocacy group U.S. PIRG Education Fund said that the surge in robocalls and spam can be attributed to several factors. These include the growing use and advancement of artificial intelligence, as well as the failure of phone companies to fully implement federally mandated caller ID authentication technology.

“It’s outrageous that, with almost one in three of us getting at least one scam call every day, lawmakers, regulators and the phone companies themselves aren’t doing more to prevent that,” PIRG Education fund director Faye Park said in a news release. “People should be able to answer their phones without having to worry every time that something bad might happen.”

PIRG said the opposite should be true.

Congress passed the TRACED Act in 2019, requiring phone companies to put more rigorous systems and technology in place to stop robocalls, including caller ID authentication. The Federal Communications Commission launched a robocall mitigation database, which companies are supposed to use to detail their efforts to fight illegal robocalls on their networks.

Laws to stop robocalls date back even farther.

“You’d think that — given that it’s been more than 15 years since the first federal law to attack spam robocalls — we’d have seen more progress by now,” the PIRG report authors wrote, “We still don’t know whether to trust our caller ID and may worry we’ll miss an important call if we don’t answer.”

Scammers Are Getting Away With It

These unsolicited calls and texts are more than just a nuisance. They’re costing Americans real money as scammers are largely getting away with their crimes.

In the first half of 2025, scam calls cost an average of $3,690 a person, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Victims of scam texts lost even more — an average of $1,452 — during the same period.
In 2024, scams cost an estimated $12.5 billion, a 25 percent increase over the year prior, according to the according to the FTC.

Kathy Stokes, director of fraud prevention at AARP’s Fraud Watch Network, told The Associated Press, said the exponential growth of internet and telephone scams has overwhelmed police and prosecutors.

Cybercrime prosecution rates are as low as 0.05 percent due to international operations, high volume, complex crimes, and lack of federal involvement in smaller cases. Larger operations with significant financial losses are more likely to be prosecuted.

Victims rarely get their money back, including older people who have lost life savings to romance scams, grandparent scams, technical support fraud and other common grifts.

“We are at a crisis level in fraud in society,” Stokes said. “So many people have joined the fray because it is pretty easy to be a criminal. They don’t have to follow any rules. And you can make a lot of money, and then there’s very little chance that you’re going to get caught.”

‘This Is Like The Twilight Zone’

Of the 9,242 phone companies that filed their robocall mitigation efforts with the FCC as of Sept. 28, 2025, only 44 percent of phone companies had completely installed the mandated software and adopted anti-robocall policies, down from 47 percent in 2024.

Compliance isn’t controversial, the report noted. Congress approved the law in 2019 by a 514 to 4 vote.

In a fraction of a second, the required robocall-blocking technology allows a phone company to verify — or not — that the call is originating from the number displaying. The phone company’s verification follows the call along its journey, whether across the street or around the world.

“This is like the Twilight Zone,” Teresa Murray, PIRG’s consumer watchdog group and co-author of the “Ringing in Our Fears” report, said in a news release.

“When the government mandates something to protect Americans — think seat belts — we usually see more compliance each year,” Murray said. “But in this case, fewer companies are protecting us and the volume of unwanted calls has increased.”

‘Cure Your Deficient Filings Or Else’

Why aren’t phone companies complying? PIRG offers a couple of explanations.

One involved the consolidation of companies. It could be that some companies that had installed the technology across their networks merged with companies that hadn’t. Or the may have installed new equipment that isn’t.

A significant number of companies that reported “complete implementation” in 2024 have shifted to “no implementation” this year. This change likely stems from the FCC’s new $10,000 penalty for submitting false robocall mitigation data. The higher penalty was approved by the FCC on Jan. 3, 2025.

The FCC is following through.

On Aug. 25, the agency essentially shut down 1,203 phone companies for non-compliance, disconnecting them from the national network. These companies were among 2,411 that had been repeatedly warned since December 2024 to “cure their deficient filings or else.” The FCC shut down 185 other companies for the same reason earlier in August.

Operation Robocall Roundup Launches

Also in August, the 51 state attorneys general all signed off on Operation Robocall Roundup, an effort that included sending warning letters to 37 cellphone providers demanding that they immediately stop illegal robocalls from being routed through their networks.

The warning letters were coordinated by the Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force, led by North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson, a Democrat, and Republican attorneys general Todd Rokita of Indiana and Dave Yost of Ohio.

PIRG said that without stronger actions by regulators, lawmakers and phone companies, the scam and nuisance calls are unlikely to slow down.

“And the threats are increasing with the explosion of artificial intelligence that can fool us into thinking we’re talking to a close relative or lifelong friend in real time,” PIRG said in the report.

‘A Major Problem’: 80% Of Americans

The calls are so incessant that 9 in 10 said in a Pew Research Center survey of 9,397 people earlier this year that the calls and text are a problem, with nearly eight in 10 calling them a major problem.

About three-fourths (73 percent) of respondents said they’d been targeted in some kind of online scam or attack, including credit card fraud, ransomware attacks or online shopping scams. Of those individuals, 32 percent said they have been targeted in the last year.

Of those individuals, nearly half (48 percent) said online hackers made fraudulent charges on their credit or debit card.

The survey also found:

• 36 percent of respondents said they purchased an item online that never arrived or was counterfeit, and that they never received a refund.
• 29 percent said a personal online account was hacked, including social media, email and bank accounts.
• 24 percent said they got a scam email, text message or call that led them to disclose personal information.
• 10 percent said ransomware blocked the use of their personal computers until they paid money.
• 7 percent said they gave money to a fake online investment opportunity, such as real estate or stocks.

Text Scams Multiply

Automated texts have skyrocketed since 2021, tripling from 7 billion to 19 billion last year, as scammers shifted from robocalls due to increased government enforcement. Artificial intelligence has made it easier for bad actors to set up ever-more sophisticated scams that AI bots can send to thousands of people at a time.

The FTC said scams that started as text messages cost consumers $470 million last year, five times more than reports in 2020, even though reports declined overall in 2024.

Scammers frequently impersonate the IRS during tax season. Additionally, they may pose as banks and credit card companies to pilfer account details. There's a growing trend of calls and texts that instill fear about outstanding loan balances or promote dubious debt relief schemes.

Also common were alerts of fake package deliveries in which there was a supposed issue with an incoming delivery. Bogus job and money-making opportunities were also common, including “task scams,” which involve promises of online work requiring people to complete a series of online tasks and end up with requests for people to invest their own money.

Other common text scams included “fraud alert” messages warning of suspicious purchases or an issue with their bank, or warnings about fake unpaid tolls with a link to pay them.

Another common scam start as a seemingly misdirected message. Called “wrong number” scams, they can evolve into a conversation often with romantic undertones that can lead to investment and other scams, according to the FTA.

What To Do About Text Scams

Here are some things consumers can do to protect themselves:

• Forward messages to 7726 (SPAM). This helps your wireless provider spot and block similar messages.
• Report messages on either the Apple iMessages app or the Google Messages app for Android users.
• Report the message to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

When unexpected messages come in, don’t click on links or respond, the FTC warns. If it seems as if it may be legitimate, contact the company using the phone number or email address on its verified website. Don’t use the information in the text message.

There are multiple ways to block unwanted texts before they take over your inbox.

What’s Illegal, What’s Not

There are key differences in robocalls and spam and scam calls.

Robocalls use prerecorded or automated messages. While some are legitimate — for example, appointment reminders — most are unwanted spam or scams.

Spam calls, from telemarketers or companies, are a nuisance, filling voicemail and wasting time, though not always malicious or criminal.

Scam calls are the most dangerous of these unsolicited calls, aiming to trick individuals into transferring money, divulging personal data, or granting account access. Often involving IRS impersonations, fake tech support, or fraudulent bank alerts, scammers use “spoofing” to appear legitimate. Victims risk identity theft, depleted bank accounts, or stolen business information.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has resources to help people identify some of the most common scams and frauds and avoid them.

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