Robocall Recipient's Ultimate Revenge

Imagine getting a robocall at 4:30 in the morning.

Aaron Titus did on Wednesday, from the Prince George's County (Maryland) School District, informing him of something he'd learned the night before from the district's website - that the opening of school would be delayed by two hours, due to snow.

The 31-year-old lawyer from the D.C. suburb of Fort Washington, Md., says he was irate, and decided turnabout was the perfect fair play.

So, he called a company that does robocalls and arranged to have one made the following morning - at 4:30 - to nine school board members as well as the district's superintendent and its general counsel.

In it, Titus said, "This is a Prince George's County School District parent, calling to thank you for the robocall yesterday at 4:30 in the morning. I decided to return the favor. While I know the school district wanted to ensure I drop my child off two hours late on a snow day, I already knew that before I went to bed. I hope this call demonstrates why a 4:30 a.m. call does more to annoy than to inform. Quit robocalling parents at 4:30 in the morning, or at least allow us to opt out of these intrusive calls."

On "The Early Show on Saturday Morning," Titus said when he got the call, he "jumped out of bed thinking, 'Who died?' Then, the second thought through my mind was, "I've really gotta keep all my kids asleep.' I've got five children - 5, 4, 3, 2 and one week old - and so trying to keep them asleep is top priority.

"I picked up the phone and it said, 'You can sleep in for two hours,'" Tutus recalled, "and so I was a little perturbed."

Titus told co-anchor Russ Mitchell the return robocall "seemed a rather logical response.

"I figured they were following The Golden Rule: They were treating me the same way they would have me treat them," he explained. "I could lodge an angry phone call or something, but I figured that would be a waste of time. So, you know, maybe a robocall wouldn't be that bad of an idea."

"I was pretty upset, and I think the sleep deprivation may have heightened my creativity as I rolled around in bed!"

Did he think, at any point, that what he did was, say, immature?!

"Well, immature, maybe. But, you know, for me, it was just a matter of effectiveness: 'What I can do to make sure that these robocalls don't happen again at 4:30?'

I knew a phone call was not going to be very effective. So, I thought the most effective thing I could do was to robocall them back. You know, it turns out that it was, in fact, very effective - and somewhat satisfying."

Titus says he's never gotten a direct reaction from the school board to his robocall.

But the district did issue a statement saying, "The robocall should have never gone out at 4 a.m. Robocalls traditionally go out between 5 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. Several Prince George's County Public Schools begin their day as early as 7:30 a.m., so we want to provide families with information on school closings or delays in a timely manner. However, never at 4 a.m."

Titus says he's "of the personal opinion that if all robocalls went away the world would be a better place. I understand there are parents without Internet access who need robocalls. So they're a necessary evil. Four-thirty in the morning, though? Nuh-uh. No. That's just not acceptable."

Titus' robocall was, he told Mitchell, "a pretty effective use of my time."

"I think I got their attention and, you know, that's exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to make sure they understand that 4:30 in the morning was just not acceptable."