How to stop the calls from these home based business companies?

You’re in a sticky situation. My sympathies to you. You may have to call or contact each company individually and tell them to not call you. Get on the national Do Not Call Registry and advise anyone who calls that you are registered with it. Keep names and phone numbers and make a list. If they call again you can register a complaint. Painful and slow but hopefully the calls will stop eventually.

Do you have caller ID? Maybe screen your calls for a while. I’m guessing they try you a few times then scratch you off their list if you don’t answer? This may be a question for a telemarketer

It’s drastic but can you change your number? – you shouldnt have to but sometimes is a quick fix, can your phone supplier screen these calls as part of a service?
It’s a pain though – I get calls regularly, the ones I hate are the robot voices. I just hang up.

If you have caller ID and are on a land line, there are quite a few software solutions to this problem. Google “automatic caller id blocking software” and you’ll find quite a few at around $35.

These programs have lots of options—you can block by area code (800 for example), or by numbers that accumulate on the first call that you flag as “junk”. There’s built in “white list” capability so friends get through. It can email you when you get calls and aren’t home and so forth.

Setting this up would require a computer with modem connected to your phone line, but we’ve all probably had that at one time or another before cable. I know one program that I’ve been told works great ($35), but probably shouldn’t post it here. If you msg me, I’ll send the name.

So, software like this would solve your problem and give you the added satisfaction of knowing that the rude people calling you were getting hung up on automatically. That’s even better, imho, than simply stopping them cold as it ties up their resources and they have to pay for the call.