The US is facing a crisis of unsolicited automated calls and texts, with Americans receiving tens of millions of scam messages every day. According to a new report by the U.S. PIRG Education Fund, scammers are raking in billions of dollars from vulnerable victims, with an average of 2.56 billion robocalls and nearly 19 billion robotexts received each month.
The proliferation of scams has been on the rise for years, but the latest numbers show a significant increase since 2021. The number of automated texts has tripled, and the volume of scammed Americans has skyrocketed. A staggering one-third of Americans report receiving at least one scam call per day, while one-fifth receive a scam text daily.
The scammers' tactics have evolved to include AI voice-cloning tools, which make it difficult for regulators and phone companies to track and block calls. The bad guys are "several steps ahead" of the authorities, according to PIRG's director of consumer watchdogs, who attributes their success to low-cost, high-reward operations.
Common scams include impersonating IRS or bank officials, package delivery scams that trick victims into paying for non-existent packages, and AI-powered bot attacks that flood thousands of people with texts at a time. The scammers' modus operandi is simple: they send millions of messages daily, making it difficult to trust caller ID and worry about missing important calls.
The rise of scammers can be attributed in part to the shift from phone-based scams to text-based ones after a government crackdown on robocalls in 2021. The Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) TRACED Act aimed to regulate robocalls, but its implementation has been met with mixed success. Only 44% of phone companies have fully installed the mandated software and adopted anti-robocall policies.
The scammers' profits are staggering: victims lost $3,690 on average for scam robocalls and $1,452 for scam texts in the first half of 2025, according to PIRG's findings. The amount lost has increased by 16% from the same period last year.
The problem is far from being solved. As one can see, scammers will continue to find new ways to deceive their victims, until we do something about it.
The proliferation of scams has been on the rise for years, but the latest numbers show a significant increase since 2021. The number of automated texts has tripled, and the volume of scammed Americans has skyrocketed. A staggering one-third of Americans report receiving at least one scam call per day, while one-fifth receive a scam text daily.
The scammers' tactics have evolved to include AI voice-cloning tools, which make it difficult for regulators and phone companies to track and block calls. The bad guys are "several steps ahead" of the authorities, according to PIRG's director of consumer watchdogs, who attributes their success to low-cost, high-reward operations.
Common scams include impersonating IRS or bank officials, package delivery scams that trick victims into paying for non-existent packages, and AI-powered bot attacks that flood thousands of people with texts at a time. The scammers' modus operandi is simple: they send millions of messages daily, making it difficult to trust caller ID and worry about missing important calls.
The rise of scammers can be attributed in part to the shift from phone-based scams to text-based ones after a government crackdown on robocalls in 2021. The Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) TRACED Act aimed to regulate robocalls, but its implementation has been met with mixed success. Only 44% of phone companies have fully installed the mandated software and adopted anti-robocall policies.
The scammers' profits are staggering: victims lost $3,690 on average for scam robocalls and $1,452 for scam texts in the first half of 2025, according to PIRG's findings. The amount lost has increased by 16% from the same period last year.
The problem is far from being solved. As one can see, scammers will continue to find new ways to deceive their victims, until we do something about it.