Yes, junk email is called spam. You remember correctly.
Where I live we have a do-not-call list on the state level that works on the one at the national level. I signed up for both & I get a call from a telemarketer maybe once or twice a year. Life is good.
As for your last call, telemarketers have the technology to call from anywhere in the world and make it look like anything they want on your caller ID. Some of these calls go through weird relays that will make the call sound faint or far away.
-Innuendo
The name Spam is pretty easy for me. Windows Mail (or maybe Avast) adds
***SPAM***, to the beginning of the Subject Line of any suspected email,
before sending it to the Junk E-mail folder.
A few years back I added my name, address and/or phone number to:
http://thedma.org/ and
https://www.optoutprescreen.com/?rf=tUnfortunately there is
a at least one loophole (my experience). My nemesis was the PBA.
If you have taken phone calls from anyone you have delt with in the past you are subjected to continue receiving them.
This of course was back when I actually answered the phone; before I got my electronic-secretary.
As far as sounding faint or far away? Don't remember it sounding that way.
Her voice sounded distant to begin with but got louder as she tried to convince me to punch certain buttons.
This difference in volume is common, either face to face or over the phone. We all do it, to make a point or emphasize something.
Many times I have had to call somebody about an issue that couldn't be handled thru email.
About half of these calls were started by me asking the *associate* to speakup. The volume didn't change but the voice got a lot louder.
I believe it's because the person moved the mic closer to his or her pie-hole.