(NEXSTAR) – Does it seem like you received more robocalls in 2025 than the year before? According to data released Thursday by the Federal Trade Commission, complaints about the obnoxious phone calls spiked this year, especially in a handful of states.
The FTC, which also runs the National Do Not Call Registry, said it fielded over 2.6 million complaints in 2025, with the top five categories consisting of reducing debt (446,243); imposters (246,228); medical & prescriptions (208,228); energy solar & utilities (35,378); and home improvement & cleaning (28,571), respectively.
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The states that lodged the most Do Not Call complaints were:
- Arizona – 1,028 complaints per 100,000 people
- Tennessee – 1,017 complaints per 100,000 people
- Nevada – 960 complaints per 100,000 people
- Illinois – 943 complaints per 100,000 people
- Florida – 933 complaints per 100,000 people
While robocall complaints jumped up in 2025, the number so far is well below that of 2021, when the FTC filed a whopping 52% more (roughly 5 million) complaints.
Will the National Do Not Call Registry black all unwanted calls?
Signing up with the Do Not Call Registry will prevent some, but not all unwanted calls.
The registry is designed to stop “sales calls from real companies that follow the law,” and tells registered telemarketers who they shouldn’t be calling. Unfortunately, the list won’t stop calls from that crook with a timeshare to sell or a fake charity to pitch.
“The good guys aren’t going to trespass on your property, and the guy who’s going to burglarize it doesn’t care,” Alex Quilici, CEO of spam call-blocking service YouMail, previously told News 2’s parent company, Nexstar. “We see the exact same thing with the robo-callers and the Do Not Call list. The good guys – like your credit card company – they’re not going to tele-market to you … but the scammers are trying to steal from you.” So who cares about a penalty for making a phone call? And so that’s why it doesn’t really work.”…