I had to change my name back to the carat version because some troll was also posting as "Ernie."

On another site, I expounded on how I believed that there is only one root company that is making many of these calls, or a sort of semi-criminal Consortium.  In any case, I believe it to be part of the same scam; buy debt for pennies on the dollar on the basis of old and/or inaccurate reports, harass people who have similar names, addresses or telephone numbers until they pay just to stop the annoyance.  Since calls from this number started after I had already identified so many other rude interlopers, I have yet to answer their calls because of a new policy only to respond to known callers.  While there is a certain business cost to this policy, it is perhaps a little better than opening oneself to the waste of time and emotional strain of extortionist bullies with an inflated sense of legitimacy.  

It's a debt collecting agency called Conversion Outsourcing Inc.