I've noticed a HUGE upswing in the number of calls my private and work cell get lately trying to sell insurance, home security systems, the Indian call center "Dees eees Micruseft calling about dee virus on yer compooter!", or the Text-to-speech recorded messages about fines, warrants, or civil court judgment defaults in other states and owing the IRS back taxes.
Just like in the past six months, I've been getting 2-3 a week.
I'm guessing it's like when you mistakenly answer spam or click a link to try and get off the list, when I answered the first few calls, I guess the numbers went on a premium database of "real live human here" numbers that gets passed or sold around to the various scammers. My natural inclination to get a live person on the line and try to entertain myself by wasting their time and stalling them, or being abusive verbally has backfired.