All right folks, buckle up because I am about to blow some minds.
We all know that robocalls are a huge problem right?
Well maybe not so much anymore–and they are certainly not as big a problem as they were a few years ago. And your humble Czar has a lot to do with that.
Importantly, the FACTS blow a MASSIVE hole in the story of folks like the NCLC who peddle the LIE that a broader TCPA leads to less robocalls. The statistics show the opposite.
Let’s go all the way back to July 10, 2015–a date that will live in infamy.
An Obama-era FCC issues its TCPA omnibus ruling that expanded the TCPA (the federal enactment designed to stop robocalls but that really just creates litigation against small business) to convert every smartphone in the nation into an autodialer. The thought was that the broader the TCPA–the more restrictive the rules–the less robocalls would be made. Makes sense right?
Wrong.
Robocalls quadrupled after the ruling–demonstrating once and for all that a broad TCPA does NOT stop unwanted calls. The ruling, seemingly, only made things worse.
The FCC’s ridiculous TCPA Omnibus order was set aside by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2018–meaning the TCPA was limited by the appellate court. According to TCPA apologists this should have made the robocall problem worse, right?
Wrong again.
Instead of increasing, complaints about robocall sank massively from 2018 to the end of 2019. This is exactly the Opposite of what folks at the NCLC and Democrats in Congress predicted. Indeed, complaints sank an incredible 40% year over year.
So the TCPA shrinks, and robocall complaints go DOWN massively.
And the trend continues.
In 2021 the Supreme Court limited the reach of the TCPA even further with its Facebook ruling. Once again the NCLC and Democrats in Congress predicted death by robocall and a massive increase in complaints.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Absolutely fools they were. (April fools.)
What really happened is that robocall complaints continue to drop, and massively.
Check it out:
As you can see robocall complaints kept right on falling even after the Supreme Court’s TCPA ruling–which a bunch of Democrats (wrongly) claimed would lead to more unwanted calls.
(All of these stats come directly from the FCC’s recent report to Congress BTW–so the source here is indisputable.)
By 2023 the number of robocall complaints is down 70% overall since 2018 and the number of complaints about DNC violations are down 63%!!!!
SO what’s going on here? IF the TCPA isn’t stopping robocalls what is happening? Why are the robocalls stopping?
Simple–the Czar. Eric J. Troutman.
I launched TCPAWorld.com in early 2019. TCPAworld.com is without question the single best read source for information about the TCPA. It made telecom law accessible to legitimate American businesses–many of which are small businesses who don’t have lawyers–who could read and understand the law for the first time. Totally free. No barriers.
So in 2019–for the first time ever–businesses began to understand the law. They learned about the TCPA. They learned about the DNC rules. And the more they learned the more they changed their practices to comply. Plus a lot of companies hired me to help them comply with the statute.
Then Queenie and I took to the stage at LeadCon, the TCPA Summit and other big lead generation conferences starting in 2020. We began preaching the gospel of TCPA to marketers big and small–whereas before we had been focused primarily on major banks and finance companies by mid-2020 our message was reaching hundreds high-volume marketers who gladly began changing their practices.
Through out tireless–and I do mean tireless–efforts we have almost single handedly changed the lead generation industry (which is the source of about a billion calls a month) from one that seemingly did not care about (or at least did not widely understand) the law to one that is extremely focused on compliance.
Our crowning achievement, of course, was the creation of Responsible Enterprises Against Consumer Harassment–R.E.A.C.H.–which is a trade organization devoted to stopping unwanted calls by EDUCATING industry participants and encouraging self-regulation.
Because it turns out that TEACHING PEOPLE about the law is FAR more effective at stopping unwanted calls than expanding statutes, enhancing enforcement or incentivizing trolls to sue people.
People really really do WANT to comply with the law–I have seen this throughout my career– they just don’t understand it. And small businesses tend to stick their head in the sand when they don’t understand something. But if you spoon feed it–lovingly–to them, they will get it. And they will change their ways.
AND THEY HAVE.
To the tune of a 70% reduction in robocall complaints.
So can the Czar really take credit for the massive reduction in robocalls (and complaints) since 2018?
Ummm… yeah.
Absolutely.
And no question about it.
Queenie and I have literally stopped billions of unwanted calls through our efforts. No one on Earth can claim to have stopped more. Those are just facts.
You’re welcome America.
Troutman 2024 baby.
Chat soon.
I’m a fan. I enjoy reading the blog and keeping up with the other items. I’ve enjoyed hearing Eric in person and know that he really is one of, if not the, pre-eminent legal minds regarding TCPA. I’m impressed by Trout-Amin and its work. Of course, you are waiting for it, BUT …
The source of robocall complaints is clearly two-fold. There are those calls by legitimate business interests that simply didn’t know the rules and ran afoul of the arcane and ever changing TCPA minefield. Then there are the nefarious actors who don’t care about the rules and flout them regardless. Many of these actually reside outside of or use infrastructure residing outside of US legal reach. They can make their annoying robocalls without regard to US law or the good efforts of Eric & associates and TCPA World! In fact, I would suggest (without the benefit of statistics like those that Eric just presented) that these have probably been the predominant source of “annoying” robocalls. These folks have invested in infrastructure that makes it much easier for them to generate MORE robocalls than legitimate small business efforts. So, why would these folks be making fewer robocalls and thus generating fewer complaints?
I think the answer may be found in the evolution of some telephone technology and the regulatory changes that have enabled its use. The emergence of STIR/SHAKEN makes it much more difficult for these non-US and even the less regulated US-based service providers to flood the public telephone network with annoying robocalls. By allowing the US common carriers to either block, or at least label as “SPAM,” “Potential SPAM,” etc., various calls, the effectiveness of these illegal robocall attempts have probably plummeted. Let’s face it. Those actors weren’t making calls simply to annoy average citizens. They had a profit motive. If they launched enough calls and even if only a small fraction were answered and turned into some form of “sale,” they made enough money to make the effort worthwhile. When the calls do not go through or are not answered because the called party sees a “flag” and ignores the call, the source of their profit dries up. Less profit, fewer robocallers, fewer robocalls.
In fact, this trend has created a problem in the opposite direction that Eric and Contact Center Compliance have both discussed and attempted to address — how can legitimate calls from businesses get to their clients such that the client will pick up the call and respond? For those of us in the business of helping these legitimate businesses make effective outreach (yes, that’s why I know about the things I’m writing about), this is a current challenge.
I do applaud TCPA World and I will gladly give it credit for providing significant help to businesses of all sizes in this crazy legal/regulatory space. However, I just had to push back a tad on giving it complete credit for what has been a very welcome trend.
… glen a. taylor
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/robocalls-top-50-3-billion-in-2022–matching-2021-call-volumes-despite-enforcement-efforts-301714297.html
Facts are stubborn things.
I had a couple of well-known serial spammers repeatedly calling me in the past two or three years – recidivists with previous large judgments against them. However, I didn’t file an FCC complaint because the ACA, Facebook, and Borden cases have made 227(b) unenforceable in most cases. Then there’s all the Article III idiocy, which makes it even harder to hold bad actors accountable. I give the Czar credit for helping clean up lead generation, and the FCC credit for shutting down the bad VoIP providers, but the court rulings have not had a positive effect. If anything, they mask the problem by reducing the number of complaints and lawsuits.
Please amend my just submitted comment to include the link to the 2023 FTC Data Book I referred to:
https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/Do-Not-Call-Data-Book-2023.pdf
I don’t want to burst the TCPA World bubble, but our thesis is that two things have happened here that are driving down complaints. First, most of the robocall complaints were related to what might be called scams (either real impersonation scams or very sketchy telemarketing). Due to enforcement and scammers targeting much better, the scam calls are about 25% of where they were – which tracks pretty closely with the drop you’re seeing in that report. Fewer scam calls, fewer complaints (as the scammers were the ones that were really annoying, like car warranty calls, etc..) Second, because calls are often identified rightly or wrongly with Scam Likely, people don’t feel any need to answer and just ignore numbers, so need to complain unless they repeatedly call.
Nope. Entirely thanks to the Czar. 🙂