Complaints about unwanted telemarketing calls have decreased for the third year in a row, according to Federal Trade Commission announced yesterday. Reports of these types of calls have decreased by more than 50 percent compared to 2021, according to the FTC, a decline that could be largely due to stepped-up government efforts to combat irritating telemarketing and phone scams.
There were about 33,000 fewer spam call complaints during fiscal year 2024 compared to the previous year, the FTC writes. The drop affected all types of unwanted calls, although the agency writes that reports of calls to reduce debt had increased “more than 85 percent from last year.”
FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection Director Sam Levine said that while illegal calls remain “a scourge,” he attributed the reduction in complaints to “the FTC's strategy of going after the initial actors and equip the agency to confront emerging threats.”
