and they could be heard in the background!!

doing said same: but power off. . using cell .

Then im not going to answer them and let them go to the answering machine.

If not Block and Report.

I have a Panasonic phone system and when someone calls a recording says to connect please press 1. This stops robocalls because all they do is wait for a tone that says someone picked up the receiver. If a person pushes 1, they get a recorded message to leave a message. I use this feature to screen calls. If it's someone I want to talk to, all I have to do is pickup the handset and start talking.

Here's a lint to Costco that sells a system like I have.

https://www.costco.com/panasonic-kx-tg994-dect-6.0-bluetooth-4-handset-phone-bundle.product.100729221.html

Our 100 year old house has terrible cell phone coverage. Cell phone calls drop off all the time, so we always have our land line as our main contact number. The spam calls got so bad a few years we unplugged the phone for 4 or 5 days. We have to do this at least once a year. Once, the phone rang from the same range of numbers for example. (555-2000 to 555-3000) for 10 minutes - unplugged the phone. Our current cordless land line is probably over 20 years old. I think it is time for a new one.