The FTC has released The National Do Not Call Registry Data Book for Fiscal Year 2011 and it contains some interesting data. Consider this graphic, depicting the number of registrations per year and the number of consumer complaints per year:
Inspection of the data indicates that: (1) the number of active registrations continues to rise each year, but (2) after a single-year decrease in complaints in 2010, new complaints rose significantly in 2011. Indeed, there were more complaints in 2011 than any other previous year.
So what is happening? Are fewer entities now complying with the regulation? Does the FTC need to engage in some high-fine smackdowns to remind entities of their obligations? Or is it the case that more people are complaining because of political robocalls or calls from exempt organizations? For October 2010, there were 147,617 complaints, 44% of which involved recorded messages. In comparison, of the 250,288 complaints recorded in September 2011, 56% involved recorded messages. What are all these recorded messages about – business, politics, or something else? Whatever they are, they seem to be bothering consumers.
You can read the report and see the data for your own state and area code on the FTC’s site.
The interesting thing for me is that the number of companies actually paying for access to the list has plummeted by 50% from 2007 from 6k to 3k.
That means that there are fewer companies making calls OR there are fewer companies that feel that it is necessary to comply with the law.
Shaun Dakin
CEO
The National Political Do Not Contact Registry
StopPoliticalCalls.org
Yep, I picked up on that puzzling statistic, too. It would be nice to see a more granular analysis of the data.
I’ve experience a large uptick in the number of calls I receive mostly pushing credit card products from caller ID spoofed numbers. Speaking with others it appears this is a growing trend which may also account for some of the increased complaints.
Thanks. This year, I haven’t gotten any of those. What I do get is a lot of g.d. chimney sweeping companies that ignore DNC, a ton of pre-recorded messages from legislators or politicians, and a slew of calls from organizations seeking donations.