What is a robocall?

If your phone keeps lighting up with recorded sales pitches, “your car’s extended warranty” messages, or calls about a Medicare plan you never asked about, you’re dealing with robocalls. This page explains in plain English what a robocall is, which ones are legal, which ones break the law, and how to tell the difference.

The plain definition

A robocall is a phone call placed by a machine rather than a person. Two things can make a call a robocall: the way it’s dialed (by software, automatically) and the way it talks to you (a recording or computer voice instead of a live human). A call can do one or both. The federal law that governs these calls, the TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the 1991 law that limits automated calls and texts), cares a lot about both of those things.

The three kinds of automated calls

When people say “robocall,” they usually mean one of these three things:

• Prerecorded or artificial-voice calls. You pick up and hear a recording, or a synthetic computer voice, instead of a real person. “Hi, this is Rachel from cardholder services” is the classic example. These are what most people picture when they hear “robocall.”
• Autodialed calls. An autodialer, software that dials phone numbers automatically without anyone pressing the buttons, places the call. A live agent might still come on the line once you answer, but the dialing itself was done by a machine. The legal shorthand for this technology is an ATDS (automatic telephone dialing system).
• Live telemarketing. A real person calls to sell you something. This isn’t a “robocall” in the strict sense, but it’s still regulated, for example by the Do Not Call Registry (the federal list you can add your number to so telemarketers leave you alone).

Legal vs. illegal robocalls

The honest part most pages skip: not every robocall is illegal. The law carves out several kinds of automated calls that are allowed, and lumping all of them together would be misleading.

Robocalls that are generally legal include:

• Calls you agreed to receive. If you gave a company permission (the law calls this “prior express consent,” meaning you agreed, in advance, to be contacted), an automated call from them can be lawful.
• Purely informational, non-sales calls in many cases: an appointment reminder, a flight delay notice, a fraud alert from your bank, a school closing.
• Political and certain charitable or government calls to your home landline, which get broader leeway than marketing calls.

Robocalls that are typically illegal include:

• Marketing or sales robocalls to your cell phone without your written permission. This is the big one. Automated sales calls to a mobile number almost always require your prior written agreement.
• Calls that keep coming after you said stop. Once you tell a caller to quit, continued automated calls can be violations. See calls after you said stop.
• Calls to a number on the Do Not Call Registry from telemarketers who have no relationship with you.
• Wrong-number robocalls meant for a stranger or a previous owner of your number. You never consented, so these are often the cleanest violations of all.

Common real-world examples

If you’ve gotten any of these, you already know what an illegal robocall sounds like:

• Auto warranty calls: “the factory warranty on your vehicle is about to expire.”
• Medicare and health-insurance calls offering plans, braces, or test kits you never requested.
• Bank or “your account” calls claiming there’s a problem and pressing you to act fast (often outright scams).
• Solar and home-improvement calls pitching panels, roofing, or energy savings.
• Debt-collection robocalls, especially for a debt that isn’t yours. See wrong-number robocalls.

Are robocalls illegal?

Some are, some aren’t, and the difference usually comes down to three questions: Did you agree to the calls? Are they trying to sell you something? Are they reaching your cell phone? An unwanted, automated sales call to your mobile that you never signed up for is the kind the TCPA was built to stop. An appointment reminder you opted into is not.

So the answer isn’t “all robocalls are illegal.” The marketing and auto-dialed ones you never consented to, especially to your cell, usually are.

How to tell if a robocall is illegal

You don’t need to be a lawyer to spot the warning signs. A robocall is more likely to be illegal if:

1. It’s a recorded or computer voice trying to sell you something and you never gave that company written permission to call.
2. It came to your cell phone rather than a landline.
3. You told them to stop and the calls kept coming.
4. Your number is on the Do Not Call Registry and a telemarketer with no relationship to you called anyway.
5. The call was meant for someone else, a stranger, or whoever had your number before you.

What is STIR/SHAKEN?

You may have heard the term STIR/SHAKEN. It’s a caller-ID authentication standard that U.S. phone carriers use to verify that a call really comes from the number it claims to, a way to fight the “spoofing” (faking caller ID) that scammers rely on. It helps carriers flag suspect calls as “Spam Likely,” but it doesn’t stop illegal robocalls on its own, and plenty still get through.

When a robocall is illegal, you may be owed money

This is the part most people never realize. The TCPA doesn’t only ban illegal robocalls. It puts a dollar figure on every one of them, and that money goes to you, the person who was called:

• $500 per illegal call or text as a baseline. You don’t have to prove you lost a cent.
• Up to $1,500 per call when the violation was “willful or knowing,” for example, when you told them to stop and they didn’t.

These amounts stack. A campaign that hits you several times a week can add up quickly, because each call can count as its own violation. If any of the examples above sound familiar, the next step is simple: tell us what’s happening and a real attorney will tell you, for free, whether you have a case.

Who reviews your case

Max Morgan, Esq. is a Pennsylvania-licensed attorney who handles TCPA cases for consumers nationwide. He reviews your situation for free, tells you honestly whether it’s worth pursuing, and if you have a case, takes it on contingency. His fee comes out of the recovery, not your pocket. No recovery, no fee.

Related: Wrong-number robocalls · How to sue a telemarketer · TCPA violations and penalties · Do Not Call Registry · Robocall settlements