I think it all started with a web site somewhere that my wife visited and entered her name and phone number for some purpose or another.

The telephone rang a month or so ago and when I glanced at the Caller ID display, it read “Out of Area.” Uh oh, those are almost always trouble and is usually a good indicator that someone I do not want to talk to is calling.

As usual, my curiosity got the best of me and I picked it up. A fellow with a heavy foreign accent asked to talk to my wife, by name. Now wouldn’t just about any husband want to know who the hell it is on the other end when some strange man calls asking for his wife?

So that is just what I did. He gave me the name of some high-tech sounding company that escapes me now. Satisfied that it was some kind of business call, I went upstairs and told my wife she had a call.

As it turns out, the fellow on the phone indicated that my wife had made some kind of inquiry about starting a home business and he wanted to know if she wanted more information. She told him “no” and he quickly ended the conversation.

When asked, my wife could not remember filling out any requests for information on any web sites or anything like that. Personally, I think she did something — maybe quite a while ago — and does not remember. And the more I think about it, the more I wonder if she may have been tricked into something like that.

There are plenty of sneaky marketing tactics being used on the Internet these days. For example, have you ever noticed those little options as you are completing the check-out process after making a purchase online?

They are sometimes just one-liners with a little check-box next to them that might say something like “Send me information on starting my own home-based business” or whatever.

They are called “co-reg” or “co-registration” in the Internet marketing business and are often a good way for one company to pick up some extra business from another company they make a deal with.

The sneaky part is that oftentimes, these little check-boxes are pre-checked for you and you have to un-check them to “opt-out,” as it were, of whatever offer it is.

I suspect it may be something similar that tricked my wife into requesting information on starting her own home business.

A short while later, we started to get more phone calls that were reported as “Out of Area” on the Caller ID. The difference was that each time one of us picked up the phone, whoever, or whatever was calling immediately hung up on the other end.

After about five of these calls over a period of three weeks or so, I started to wonder if these were harassment calls. I knew they would probably have to be coming from a company phone somewhere since the infamous “Out of Area” is usually used by telemarketing companies to avoid revealing their purpose to the people they are calling.

I know about Caller ID “spoofing,” but could not imagine any individual being ticked off enough at someone here to take such measures to make anonymous harassing phone calls.

I did remember a rather unpleasant exchange I had with a woman who called once as a result of something that I requested information about on the web, but that was probably a year or so ago and that sure would be a long time to harbor a grudge. Possible, but unlikely.

When we received another one of these mystery hang-up calls a couple of days ago, I decided that I was going to call the phone company and report them as harassing phone calls if it happened again.

Sure enough. Yesterday at 10:51 a.m. the phone rang and “Out of Area” was displayed on the Caller ID. I immediately called the phone company and after waiting out the required hold time due to “heavy call volume,” I was connected to a woman who was actually quite helpful and nice.

My intent in calling was to find out if there was some way I could find out who was making these annoying calls. In years past I had heard about “traps” that the phone company can utilize to find out who is making harassing calls to a particular line.

Imagine my I surprised when I learned that there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop these calls. Other than writing a little bit bigger check to my local phone company (Verizon) every month, that is!

The nice woman explained to me that the mysterious calls were in fact telemarketing calls that were not being completed due to lack of telemarketers on the other end to take the calls. Imagine, I kind of reverse “heavy call volume!” Holy smokes!

The way she described it is that the big telemarketing companies use automated phone systems to dial hundreds or thousands of potential telemarketing victims at an amazing speed.

The automated system determines when a call is answered by a real person and then passes the call on to one of the telemarketers that is waiting to deliver their sales pitch. However, when all the telemarketers are busy annoying other consumers, the nifty automated system simply hangs up on whoever has been called. Isn’t that nice?

The nice lady then told me that the only thing I can do is to sign up for feature on my phone line called “Call Intercept,” which will grab hold of any incoming call that does not send valid Caller ID data with it and play a recording to whoever is calling and telling them to punch their phone number in on their phone so it can show up on my Caller ID or speak into their phone and reveal their identify. In that case, my phone rings and when I pick it up the phone company’s automated system tells me that the following person is trying to call me and plays the recording of the caller who, hopefully, has revealed his or her identity truthfully.

Gee whiz, I will admit that sounds like a pretty cool feature and is one I might like to have on my line. The only problem is that it will cost me an extra $5.25 cents a month.

So I guess I have to pony up a little bit bigger payment to the phone company every month to put an end to calls that I consider harassment. I mean what else can you call it when you get a series of “hang up” calls?

Seeing as I am already paying the phone company an extra $7.70 a month just for the Caller ID (way over-priced I think!), I am a little reluctant to shell out another $5.25 to stop something that should be illegal. It’s not that $5.25 is a huge amount of money, but do I really have to pay to stop someone from harassing me?

For now, I have settled on the idea of just ignoring any calls that come in as “Out of Area” and let the answering machine pick up. That’s something I told myself I was going to do long before these “hang up” calls started coming in and I guess it’s about time I stuck to it.