The Federal Trade Commission today released its annual Do Not Call Registry, showingthat consumer reports about unwanted calls continue to drop for the third straight year, with complaint volume down by more than half since 2021.

Illegal calls remain a scourge, but the FTCs strategy to pursue upstream players and equip the agency to confront emerging threats is showing clear signs of success, said Sam Levine, Director of the FTCs Bureau of Consumer Protection.

In the years to come, it will be critical we continue this progress by confronting not only telemarketers but those firms who knowingly profit from scam calls, Levine said.

The FTC has pursued a multifaced strategy to crack down on unwanted calls. In 2023, the agency announcedOperation Stop Scam Calls, the largest crackdown on illegal telemarketing in the agencys history.

This year, the agency issued a rule banning impersonation of government or business, andexpanded the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) to protect businesses facing illegal telemarketing.

The FTC is also confronting emerging threats such as voice cloning, by launching aVoice Cloning Challenge andclarifying that the TSR covers AI-enabled scam calls.

The FTCs data book provides the most recent fiscal year information available on robocall complaints, the types of calls consumers reported to the FTC, and a complete state-by-state analysis of the data.

According to this years edition, complaints unwanted calls about medical and prescription issues topped the list, with more than 170,000 reportsmore than half of which were robocallsreceived during the fiscal year ending on September 30, 2024.