Now I have had a silent number for years, and I had never suffered from crank/unsolicited/scamming calls until very recently.

Just in the past week I have had a couple of calls from people representing banks - OK, they "proved" it, but I still gave them short shrift -
and more disturbing, about four calls from charities - and the likes of the RFS. In the latter cases I asked how they got my number and they said that
IT WAS A RANDOMLY GENERATED NUMBER.

Now that was from three such callers. So I'm wondering what the go is? If you have a silent number, isn't it supposed to be invisible?
I guessed that if they were using such a program, then even my invisible number would show as a "valid" number. OH, and they each and every one
assured me that they couldn't see my number! I hope that wasn't a porky.

Any ideas/strategies/more ideas on how to go back to the land of unsolicited calls?

Am(perplexed, and not a little peeved).