At my wits end with telemarketers, I finally came up with a plan.

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64. Two cheap and easy solutions: Change your number, or use Google Voice.

You can change your landline number, and at the same time, ask the landline provider to make your new number unlisted. Ask them to give you a new number that has not been recently recycled. Then call your friends and give it to them, and give it to no one else.

Alternatively, you could keep your landline number and use Google Voice.

My main number has been a cell phone number for years. Long story short, my income took a big hit a couple of years ago and I have very persistent debt collectors calling me over and over. It had to stop, but I didn't want to change my number.

So I ported (transferred) my number to Google Voice for a one-time charge of $20. There is no monthly fee. Now callers to that number are routed through Google Voice, either forwarded to any phone I designate or straight to one of many custom voice mails I've created for specific callers. For example, the number I've had for so long now rings my current cell phone number, and my home landline number, if I chose to have callers put through, or if they are telemarketers or debt collectors, they can be sent straight to special voice mails made by me just for them.

Google Voice shows all calls coming in, and for each caller, you can set up an individual, or group, voicemail - you can have different voice mails for different callers - or you can block the caller. Blocking the caller results in the caller hearing, "this line has been disconnected."

If the caller hides his number and it shows anonymous or private caller, etc, you can designate all such callers to be handled in a particular way - blocked, sent to special voice mail you've created for them, etc.

It took a little playing around with, but I went from having my phone ringing every ten minutes from debt collectors to now only receiving calls from people I know. There is a slight learning curve to get it set to deliver the results you want, but once you do, wow, what a difference.

Couple of things - calling out to have your current number show on other people's caller id, if you need that to happen, requires you to either call into your Google Voice account by calling your long time number and typing in the number you want to call, or either logging onto your Google Voice account on your PC, clicking the "call" button, and typing the number you want to call. GV will call your active phone, home or cell, whichever you choose, and once you answer, you will be connected to the person you were calling and he/she will see your long-time number (now housed at Google Voice) on his/her caller id.

You can also text from Google Voice on your computer, and the person you are texting will see the text as coming from your long-time number. Plus you get to use a full keyboard and monitor to text with, vs a tiny cell phone keypad and screen.

One thing you'll have to do first though, if you want to use GV for your current landline number - GV does not port-in landline numbers, so you'll have to port your current landline number out to a cell phone carrier. If you do this, use a prepaid carrier, sign up for their smallest possible plan with the cheapest possible phone - you just need to get that number active on a cell carrier for like a week. After you do that, and the number has been successfully transferred to the new cell phone, create your GV account, and when asked if you want a new number or use your existing number, click existing number, fill out the info needed and submit. I think it takes like a week to port in with GV (maybe less, my memory is fuzzy on that). Once that completes, you have control of your number like you never had before.

One other thing I'll mention. One of the callers I was trying to avoid used a lot of different numbers to call me. For some reason, those numbers never showed in GV until I went into GV after having received the call on my phone, and entered that number into my GV address book, then set that number to go straight to a specific voice mail I created in GV for those types of callers. Once I'd added the number, it showed up and was treated as I'd specified. These were only numbers from one company which is relentless in calling. But now, their calls never ring my phone - instead they go straight to that special voice mail I created for them. Sweet!

Didn't mean to write a novel here, but this service has really made a difference for me. If you're attached to your current number and want to keep it, this is the best way I know to do that. If you really don't care about getting a new number, though, you could just change your number and get it unlisted.