Spam and scam robocalls have surged to their highest level since 2019, according to a new report from the U.S. PIRG Education Fund, posing growing challenges for businesses that depend on phone-based outreach, including those in credit and collections. The report, Ringing in Our Fears 2025, warns that despite federal mandates designed to curb the problem, compliance among phone carriers has actually declined over the past year.
Four years after Congress required phone companies to deploy caller ID authentication technology (known as STIR/SHAKEN), fewer than half of the 9,242 carriers registered with the Federal Communications Commission have fully implemented it, which is down from 47% last year to just 44% today.
The lapse in compliance comes as robocalls are again surging nationwide. Americans now receive an average of 2.56 billion scam and telemarketing calls per month, a 20% jump from 2024 levels. About 57% of all robocalls fall into those categories. The average victim of a scam call lost nearly $3,700 in the first half of 2025, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
Regulators have ramped up enforcement. The FCC has shut down nearly 1,400 phone companies this year for failing to meet compliance standards, effectively cutting them off from the U.S. telephone network. In August, all 51 state attorneys general launched Operation Robocall Roundup, sending warning letters to dozens of carriers suspected of allowing illegal calls on their lines.
Still, the report warns that enforcement alone won’t solve the problem. Emerging threats such as AI-driven voice cloning and SIM-swapping scams are making it easier for bad actors to impersonate real people and institutions, which raises the risk that even legitimate calls from businesses could be mistaken for scams.
For collection agencies, debt buyers, and financial institutions, the rise in spam robocalls has a direct operational impact: the more spam flags consumers see, the less likely they are to answer legitimate calls. Even verified caller IDs can be ignored if consumers no longer trust what’s on their screens.
As enforcement actions continue and new FCC requirements evolve, agencies may need to double down on caller authentication strategies and diversify their outreach through trusted digital channels like text and email.
