Dead Calls

I live alone and get at least 5 or 6 phone calls per day with no-one on the other end of the line. They either say nothing at all or hang up if I take the time to say hello the second time. I'm wondering what this is all about.

A year or so ago I put my name and phone number on the no call list. Not that it did much good because I still get another 5 or 6 calls per day with people soliciting. I've given up being polite and telling them I'm not interested and now I just hang up on them. I'm really wondering if the dead calls are those taped solicitations that have kept my number in the system but the message has been deleted. Most of the time I see an 800 number on the caller ID and I've decided to write it down next time and call them back.

Everyone seems to hate these unsolicited calls so it makes me wonder just how much business they garner. Personally, I never buy from unsolicited callers or door-to-door salespeople so they're really wasting their time on me.