The SPAM Call Crisis: How Consumers and Businesses Can Fight Back
The phone rings, you pick it up expecting a client or a family member, and instead, you are greeted by silence or a robotic voice about a car warranty. It’s a frustration shared by almost everyone with a mobile device these days. Consumers are being inundated with spam calls, and the problem seems to be getting worse.
According to a survey from Preszler Injury Lawyers, the average American receives over 1,500 illicit communications annually. Furthermore, data from YouMail, one of the country’s largest spam filtering companies, indicates that in May 2025 alone, Americans were bombarded with more than 4 billion robocalls. The behavior shift has been dramatic: nearly 90% of consumers now refuse to answer calls from numbers they don't recognize, even if they might be legitimate business contacts.
While these interruptions are annoying for consumers, they have created a secondary crisis: legitimate business calls are being mistakenly filtered out by phone carriers and device apps, leading to lost connections and missed opportunities.
Here is how consumers can fight back, and what businesses need to know to survive the filter wars.
Strategy 1: Short-Term Solutions (Immediate Blocking)
If you are on the receiving end of a plethora of spam calls every day, short-term solutions provide immediate relief by blocking or filtering unwanted traffic before it rings your phone.
Carrier Apps: Most major carriers now offer built-in protection. For example, AT&T offers the ActiveArmor app which automatically detects and blocks fraud calls. Major filtering services like Hiya, T-Mobile's Scam Shield, and First Orion use advanced algorithms to detect suspicious call patterns and volume spikes, flagging numbers in real-time.
SPAM Blocking Apps: There is a robust market of third-party applications specifically designed to filter calls based on crowdsourced data. Popular options include Nomorobo, RoboKiller, or TrueCaller.
The Paid Route: For a premium (often around $3 per month), users can subscribe to advanced SPAM filters. However, keep in mind that these often identify the calls as "Spam Risk" rather than preventing them entirely.
Strategy 2: Long-Term Solutions (Stop the Calls at the Source)
The long-term fix involves addressing the root cause: how your number gets onto spam lists in the first place.
National Do-Not-Call Registry: While not perfect, registering your number is the first step to reduce calls from legitimate (but annoying) telemarketers.
Data Removal Services: Services like Incogni can prevent data brokers from selling your contact information, while tools like Google’s "Remove My Data" allow you to scrub personal contact details from search results.
While these consumer protections are increasingly effective at blocking spam, they create unintended consequences for legitimate businesses trying to reach their customers.
Why Your Business Calls Are Being Blocked
If you are a business owner, the rise of aggressive spam filtering should concern you. While the FCC maintains a Robocall Mitigation Database to combat illegal robocalls, current costs and red tape at the phone provider level mean regulatory help is still catching up to the technology, leaving businesses vulnerable. As consumers adopt the strategies listed above, and as carriers like AT&T and device manufacturers like Apple implement aggressive filtering (sending unverified numbers straight to voicemail), the collateral damage is your important business calls.
The problem compounds quickly through what's known as the "cascading effect”—when a single business number's reputation is compromised by even one negative customer report, algorithms can flag not just that specific number, but an entire block of numbers linked to your business account.
If even businesses with legitimate calls are being filtered out, your customers are missing vital communications. This leads to:
Fewer calls coming through on your business lines
Clients missing appointment reminders or service updates
Dropped customer service effectiveness and missed follow-ups
A direct risk of lost revenue and opportunities
Skyrocketing call costs from repeated attempts and unheard voicemails
Widespread number contamination that can derail entire operations
Regulatory headaches, auditing, or dialing restrictions, even for compliant companies
Consider HostMyCalls
If your business is caught in the crossfire of aggressive spam filtering, you need more than a basic phone service. HostMyCalls from HostMy proactively monitors and maintains your caller reputation at the carrier level, preventing the cascading effect that can contaminate your entire number block. Research shows that proactive caller reputation management can increase answer rates by up to 20%.
Your calls won't get lumped in with the car warranty scammers. Your customers will see your legitimate business name and answer with confidence.
Connect with a HostMy expert to learn how HostMyCalls keeps your business calls reaching the people who need to hear from you.