I experienced the exact same thing on my land line a yesterday at 11:37 AM (before I joined this group). My extension caller IDs said UNKNOWN NAME. I tried calling 1-540-808-4331 that evening and once got no rings, once got no answer and finally got an answer from an adult female voice with a heavy European-sounding accent that said "Allo" and then hung up before I could finish saying I was calling to find out who really had called me earlier. The number is registered to a Christiansburg, VA land line.
I believe the call we received was probably a scam and was definitely spam from an automated dialer. I could've stayed on the line and told them to remove my name from their calling list because I'm on the National Do-Not-Call List and their calls would be illegal, but it may have done no good in the long run. Since I hung up they may call again in a few days if they are like many scammers or regular spammers; otherwise, they may wait a while to call back. That's one reason why you "keep getting calls from every scam artist out there." I've researched this. We don't individually get called by all of them, just a lot of them... and some repeatedly, no matter what we do. A lot of them are spoofed: using other people's numbers to do their dirty work. I've suffered from that many time, including getting scam calls from my own number.
Good luck! I did the same thing on Friday. If they're like many scammers or even regular spammers they may call back in a few days, weeks or a couple of months, depending whether you didn't answer, just hung up, asked them to take your name off their calling list or chewed them out. The next call from the same people may be from that same or a different number, including your own. Real telemarketers or charities will remove your name from their lists, especially if you tell telemarketers you're on the National DO-NOT-CALL-LIST. The others usually won't, especially if they're calling from spoofed numbers, because they can't be caught very easily. That's what my research and personal experience have shown.
You have a good idea there, as long as you don't get too many from different numbers and it eventually fills up your phone block list. These days the Do Not Call List means nothing to scammers and spammers, especially if they spoof numbers. Let somebody else get in trouble, not them. By the way, what do you do about calls that come from your own number? My phone company says it can't trace or block those calls. Can your Panasonic do that?
Good warning and great advice!. I've gotten similar calls from numbers in Iowa, where I live, from people with American accents. I do have diabetes and they promised meters with no sticking and I'd seen ads for something like that, so I bit. They're probably all scams! I started giving them name and address, they already had my phone number, but when they asked for SS# and insurance information I balked and got off the line. I might've given them my birthdate, though, so that's bad. Every other time before and after I've hung up or told them NO right off the bat.
The problem is: with just my name and general location from my phone number they can look me up in public information and get the other stuff. The government and other businesses make it possible for identity theft, if people know where to look and want to do some work. BUMMER! Actually, if you don't have an unlisted phone number, an ambitious person can track you down with a lot of work or by paying one of these detection websites or a private detective. So DON'T FALL FOR IT and make their job easier.
Scammers and even spammers trying to sell real merchandise ignore the Do Not Call List, especially if they spoof numbers to make it hard for the FTC, FCC, FBI and others to catch them. Your call sounds like a scam. I've actually fallen for a computer scam from an outfit (with people having very heavy East Indian accents) that purports to do work for Microsoft regarding Error Reporting. I let them on my computer twice, but only briefly the second time because their connection broke, and hope they didn't install malware that my security programs can't find and have propagated across my home network. I fell for it because they somehow actually had valid data from my computer, but their manner was contradictory and I told them several times when they called that I was too busy to deal with them. Later, I read that it was a scam so I read them the riot act, which I now know from research can cause some scammers to retaliate very nastily.