Can You Really Make Money When You Get a Robocall?

I'm always a little bit skeptical about these things, but I've seen this particular service highlighted on local TV news shows and now in an article on Gizmodo, so it might be worth it to look a little deeper.

The average person in the United States gets about 18 robocalls a month, most of them trying to sell us an extended warrantee for our vehicle or promising to help us clear up our bad credit rating. We usually just hang up or let the call go to voice mail, but what if we could actually make money on each one of these calls we receive? That's what a company called DoNotPay says its Robo Revenge service can do for us.

Here's how it works. First of all, you must have your number listed on the National Do Not Call Registry. If you're not already on that list DoNotPay will take care of that for you. Once you sign up with DoNotPay you establish a burner credit card (issued in DoNotPay's name) that you use when the robocaller dials you up. Yes, you will have to interact with them for a few minutes, but the payoff could be substantial. Once you give your burner credit card number to the person calling you DoNotPay has their information and instantly turns around and sues them for violating the Do Not Call list under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

The Robo Revenge service automatically generates court documents and demand letters on your behalf. The payoff amounts range but can get up to $3,000 per call.

That's a pretty good return for a few moments of interruption to your day. There is a small monthly fee of about $3.00 for DoNotPay services and they can be accessed online or via an iOS app.