New Study On Robo-Calls Reveals Some Interesting Facts

Depending on who you talk to, Rockford is either a hot-bed of robo-calls or one of the few places where you won't be barraged with them.

At least that's the case with Joe Dredge and me on the WROK Morning Show.

Joe can't remember the last time a robo-call wasted his time, while I've received 14 robo-calls this week alone. Annoyingly enough, that's a pretty average week for me.

I don't know what it is about me, or my phone, or my number, but robo-callers must be writing my name and phone number in bathroom stalls around the world. I've added my name and number to the government's Do Not Call Registry, but it doesn't seem to have done any good whatsoever.

So, it seems to me that robo-calls just keep getting worse, while Joe is of the opinion that the call volume is about the same as it's been, or maybe has even lessened.

Which one of us is right?

If you said "Joe is right!" congratulations to you. According to a new study, both you and Joe are correct in thinking that the number of robo-calls going on day after day, month after month, and year after year is pretty consistent.

A team of researchers at North Carolina State University decided to look into the whole robo-call phenomenon, and they came up with some interesting findings in their 11-month study.

They figured that one of the best ways to find out how many incoming robo-calls there are would be to monitor some phones. So they established a relationship with a communications company allowing them to monitor over 66,000 phone lines for robo-calls.

They found that over the 11 months they were tallying up calls, those 66,000 phones received 1,481,201 unsolicited calls. The study's authors say that while that is a stunning amount of robo-calls, the number is neither going up or going down. If anything, the call volume remains consistent.

They also found that answering or ignoring the calls made no difference in the amount of calls received. The myth that if you don't answer you'll be taken off the robo-call lists is just that, a myth. Answer or not, they're still going to call you.

There's a lot more to the study than I have the time and space to share with you here, but if you'd like to take it all in, click here.