These antisocials are calling me every day, sometimes more than once.  I am on the Do Not Call list and have reported them to the FCC, but nothing seems to work.  In desperation I signed up for the Blocked Numbers option with Verizon (they say it will cost $4 a month - we'll see).  When I tried to block this particular number, I got a recording from Verizon saying it was "unavailable" and therefore couldn't be blocked - HUH?  What the heck are they charging me for then?  Feels like I have fallen down the Rabbit Hole....  Can't anyone do anything

put the number in your contacts list and assign it the ring tone "no ring".  (You might need to download the ring tone.)  It won't stop the calls but it will make them easy to ignore.

i tell them to hang on while i go look for the party they're calling.

Pointless. It's even hard to say if the number it shows on the caller ID is even the real number they're calling from. My cell number is 530-227-XXXY and I got a call the other day from a telemarketer (recorded message from) 530-227-XXXZ (literally 3 or 4 increments higher than my own nunber). I called to let the woman know and she had no idea what I was talking about, but it just goes to show how these f**kers can do anything they want and there's nothing any of us can do about it. I'd encourage people to just keep them on the line to feed them BS info and waste their time, but the automated calls do away with that, and that would take up time if you're on a cell and cost you money. It's clear that the phone/cell companies and law enforcement will never bother to stop these people. You see complaints for years about the same number with no action. I would seriously cause physical harm to a person doing this if I ever found them, and I'm not some nut... but I'll go ballistic on them if I ever find them.

That's the problem, the number it shows these scammers and telemarketers are calling from, very well may not be that at all, but just what they've configured it to show. The fact the cell and phone companies allow connections to be made from numbers that are fake, shows where the weak link in the chain is, and why they probably don't bother to do anything (they probably don't have the ability to track and stop them even if they wanted to, because they're system is flawed/broken to allow it in the first place). This is why when people report calling the spammer's back that they get a message saying the number isn't in service (it probably isn't and it's just a number the scammers select to display.. which is the problem that they're allowed to do it, from God knows what place in the world).