10 American Cities Where Robocalls Are Epidemic

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If you live in Atlanta and don’t recognize the phone number on your caller ID, there is a pretty good chance you won’t want to answer.

Georgia’s capital city received nearly 100 million robocalls last month alone. April marked the fifth consecutive month that Atlanta was ranked No. 1 in the nation for its inbound robocall volume, according to the latest monthly National Robocall Index from YouMail, an anti-robocall service.

The report lists the cities that receive the most robocalls, as well as the phone numbers from which the most robocalls are made, among other information. It’s based on data from YouMail’s subscribers.

The most robocalled cities last month were:

  1. Atlanta: 97,672,500 estimated robocalls received
  2. Dallas: 88,530,500
  3. New York: 86,195,000
  4. Chicago: 81,913,000
  5. Houston: 81,642,000
  6. Los Angeles: 70,781,000
  7. Baltimore: 55,391,500
  8. Newark, New Jersey: 44,974,500
  9. Philadelphia: 39,930,500
  10. Detroit: 39,718,000

So far this year, about 10 billion robocalls have been made to U.S. phones, according to YouMail. That’s up from 1.65 billion robocalls made by the same time last year, and YouMail predicts the 2016 tally will reach 30 billion robocalls by the end of the year.

To try to reduce the number of robocalls you receive, Alex Quilici, chief executive of YouMail, suggests in a press release on the figures that ignoring calls from blocked numbers or numbers you don’t recognize instead of answering:

“If you do , you’ve let the machine on the other end know that they have reached an active number. Now, your name will get added to more lists, and you’ll receive exponentially more unwanted calls.”

If you mistakenly answer a robocall, Quilici advises hanging up as soon as you hear the first recorded words.

For more robocall-fighting tips, be sure to check out “12 Effective Weapons for Stopping Robocalls.”

How do you deal with robocalls? Let us know by leaving a comment below or over on our Facebook page.

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