How should you react to a robocall?

Robocalls drive people to distraction or, in the case of Stefanie Sellars, revenge.

After registering with the National Do Not Call registry, blocking known telemarketing numbers, and complaining to the phone company—all to no avail—Sellars of Simi Valley, California, tried a different approach to thwart the tsunami of unsolicited pre-recorded calls. "I handed the phone to my toddler." That wasn't the only strategy she tried. After picking up the call, she'll sometimes let the phone languish on the counter until the call hangs up.

Sellars has a special treat for live telemarketers. "I told the callers that I wrote a song called ‘I Love Milk,' and proceeded to sing it to them until they hung up. I am thinking about asking them to hold while I crank up some Metallica or give the phone to the dog."  She dreads the coming election season and its onslaught of solicitations but figures, "they can tell the dog whom to vote for."

Read more about "How Robocalls Scam the Do Not Call List" and Consumers Union's Report on How Phone Companies Could End Unwanted Robocalls

Sellars isn't the only person to respond creatively. Other consumers keep a whistle or loud horn by the phone, press the proper key to connect with an operator and blast it in his ear. Another consumer likes to hold for a live person and whisper, "It's done but there's blood everywhere," then hang up.

Such tactics may provide personal satisfaction, but they're a bad strategy if you want to stop receiving robocalls, says Lois Greisman of the Federal Trade Commission. Neither pressing #1 to complain to a live person nor pressing #2 to be removed from the calling list will do the trick.  Merely by responding you indicate that there is a real person picking up the phone. Your number is then added to a "hot list" of live respondents, to be put in a queue to call again—and again.

Those interruptions are not just infuriating. They're also a vector by which scams enter consumers' homes. Telemarketing fraud is estimated to cost consumers $350 million a year—and it often begins with a robocall. You may think you're smart enough to spot a scam but why tempt fate?  

"Our advice is very basic," says Greisman. "Hang up."

—Catherine Fredman