Telemarketing Statistics

  • 98% of 1.78 million responding to one on-line survey said telemarketing calls made them “angry”.
  • Half of Californians polled in a survey said interruptions from telemarketers irked them more than sitting in traffic, doing their taxes, or waiting in line at the DMV.
  • The Federal Trade Commission received 17,423 complaints about telemarketers in 1999 – an eight-fold increase over the 2,260 reported in 1997.
  • Telemarketers place 148 million junk calls a day according to Private Citizen.
  • In 2000 the Direct Marketing Association reported receiving 3,789 telemarketing complaints in one 35-day period.
  • Telemarketing is a nearly $500 billion a year business.
  • Americans lose $40 billion a year to fraudulent telemarketers according to the National Fraud Information Center.
  • Investment scams alone amount to losses of $1 million an hour.
  • The National Association of Attorneys General estimates about 5,000,000 Americans are defrauded by telemarketers every year and one of five of them do not report the fraud, usually because they are embarrassed.
  • 56% of people targeted by telemarketers are 50 or older.
  • Charities make more money from selling your name and number (“sucker lists”) to the other telemarketing companies than from the donations they collect from calling.
  • On average, only 24% of what you donate in response to a telemarketing sales call will actually reach the charity on whose behalf the solicitation is initiated. The professional telemarketing company hired to make the call gets the rest. In the cases where the pledges fail to materialize, the charity can actually lose money to the telemarketer.
  • The average American gets called 2 to 3 times per day by a telemarketer.
  • The FBI estimates that there are 14,000 illegal sales operations bilking consumers in the United States every day.
  • The same telemarketer will often call an elderly person day after day, building a relationship with the target, until he/she thinks a friend, not a stranger is trying to sell them something.
  • 92% of the adults in the United States have reported receiving fraudulent telephone offers.
  • Fraudulent telemarketers prey on vulnerable consumers with certain characteristics. Unfortunately, the most common victims are the elderly and immigrants, who in worst cases may lose their life savings. But anyone without knowledge and due diligence can fall prey.