If you want to have a landline phone just for making calls, get one and turn off the ringer. If you want to receive calls, get an answering machine for screening. Tell your friends that you're screening calls, and you will pick up if you're there.
Many of the telemarketers automatically turn off if they don't hear you answering. Because of predictive dialing, the telemarketer is rarely ready to take the call until after your answering machine message. So a lot of the messages will be silent, and some of the callers will hang up before the phone starts recording a message. This means that you might miss 10 calls, but only have 5 or 6 messages. BTW, telemarketers are spoofing caller IDs now, so don't pick up, even if you know the number. I've had "David" show up as the local high school, and one time he showed up as me. That was odd seeing my own number on the caller ID.
If you want to have a landline phone just for making calls, get one and turn off the ringer. If you want to receive calls, get an answering machine for screening. Tell your friends that you're screening calls, and you will pick up if you're there.
Many of the telemarketers automatically turn off if they don't hear you answering. Because of predictive dialing, the telemarketer is rarely ready to take the call until after your answering machine message. So a lot of the messages will be silent, and some of the callers will hang up before the phone starts recording a message. This means that you might miss 10 calls, but only have 5 or 6 messages. BTW, telemarketers are spoofing caller IDs now, so don't pick up, even if you know the number. I've had "David" show up as the local high school, and one time he showed up as me. That was odd seeing my own number on the caller ID.
You just have to learn to work the system.