by Paul Witt
Lead Data Analyst, Division of Consumer Response & Operations

Have you ever reported an unwanted call to the FTC, whether it’s a robocall (where you hear a recorded message) or call from a live person? If so, thank you. Reporting, I’m sorry to say, won’t end these annoying calls, but it helps the FTC and other law enforcement agencies investigate and bring cases against scammers and businesses that aren’t following the law. In fact, the FTC’s recent actions against robocallers show what your report can do.

While you won’t always know how your report made a difference, you can find out more about calls people like you are reporting to the FTC, across the U.S. or in your community. The FTC’s Do Not Call data is now available in an interactive format, which you can find at http://ftc.gov/exploredata, and is updated quarterly.

Among other things, you can find out:

the topics of the calls people reported

where your state or county ranks in number of calls reported

how many calls were robocalls vs. calls from a live person

the most-reported topics and trends over time

At http://ftc.gov/exploredata, you’ll also find interactive data on the other types of reports the FTC gets — like scam reports — that we told you about last year.

Please keep reporting those calls. You can report unwanted calls at donotcall.gov. The FTC also takes the phone numbers you report and releases them each business day to help companies working on call-blocking solutions.

Learn more about unwanted calls at http://ftc.gov/calls.   back...