Wrong number!!!

[PepperElf]

And then there's that time, on my second day at a new company, with a bill collector attempting to reach a former employee who used to be at my "new" number and what he did after talking to me ... *shudder*

what did he do?



and... i've personally been on the other end of things myself.
I've had quite a few times where I've had to call customers - using the phone numbers they verified were correct - only to find that they were wrong numbers (or disconnected).

if you want your stuff back on time...why in the world would you give out a wrong number?

[Misanthropical]

13 years ago, we had a phone number that use to belong to a lawyer and was still listed under his name in the yellow pages, so some of the calls we got.... Anyway, one woman called and I told her the phone number no longer belonged to the lawyer. She apologized and hung up, so no harm no foul, right? She calls back and asks me if I or my husband were lawyers. I told her that no we were not.

I had one man who was convinced I was hiding his lawyer from him and would call twice a week. I got to the point that I just expected his calls and it wasn't till he got all nasty with me about it that I told him that he was right, his lawyer was hiding from him because the lawyer thought he was a complete dumb ass. The man never called back again.

I also got collection calls for some woman that I had never heard of before but the collection agency thought I was lying. I finally got to the point that I told them that no matter how many times they called, the woman would not magically appear in my living room to answer my phone. The guy started laughing and I never got a call for her again.

One day a couple of years ago I was getting calls from Mexico looking to collect money owed from some woman I never heard of, but I couldn't relay the information very well, since the only Spanish I speak is not fit for a business call. The calls came in minutes apart for an hour, so I got ticked off that they wouldn't stop calling and let loose with the Spanish I did know and that stopped the calls until I went to take a nap and the phone number pops up again so I let it go to the message machine and some man in perfect English yells at my answering machine about how rude the woman they were looking for was and how she should pay the money she owes instead of yelling obscenities at his employees and hiding out. After that call I never did get another call from them, so maybe they realized their mistake.

[dalesys]

I occasionally get texts in Spanish...
I think I'll reply to the next one...

No habla Inglis!

[EricKei]

One land line I had was one digit off from a car place. That company accidentally published My number as their business number in the local phone book.

WEll, this appears to be in the past tense ^_^ But businesses can be forced to purchase phone numbers from people when they get calls meant for the business a bit too often. This happens with pizza joints often enough that some of them have over a dozen (non-listed) extra lines that they never really wanted ~_~ In your case, it would have likely been easy to get it done, as they actually published your number; in most of these cases, it's just close to the actual number. If any of you are having this issue (and you don't mind having to get a new number), check your state/local laws about it and see what comes up.

She apologized and hung up, so no harm no foul, right? She calls back and asks me if I or my husband were lawyers. I told her that no we were not.

Hey, it was worth a shot ^_^

[Ashaela]

I got my first cell phone and cell phone number when I was at college, as a hand-me-down from my mom in 2001. I kept that number until December 2010. The entire time, I would constantly get calls from people with very thick Spanish accents asking for the same guy, over and over and over. I would always tell them they had the wrong number, but it never did any good....

Last Christmas, I got a new phone as a gift and a new number to go with it. Finally, they stopped calling me! :-p

[NotMyProblem]

what did he do?

He liked the sound of my voice so much that immediately afterwards he took a break to jerk off. Called multiple times. Left an explicit message; at least I'd rather think that message was from him vs one of my coworkers. I was unprepared to deal with such a situation at work. I cannot adequately convey via text my reaction. Especially the shock/dismay/later self consciousness from thinking you are having a regular phone conversation with someone then learning they were masturbating during each and every call ... I was very squicked out by that thought. Combine that with how many times I was told I should be a phone sex operator. Then I started to worry if that was what a few of my guy friends were also doing when we spoke. Yet that's not something one easily asks...

It was difficult to form this reply. Too many days of too little sleep. Hadn't thought of this for years. There was no way I could word this delicately ......

[HiddenMica]

My ex boyfriend had some really funny ones. When he got a cell phone he got a phone number that belonged to the local heroin dealer. Got some really interesting messages on that number. He liked to mess with them and would send them random times and places some times then give tips to the cops.

[Rapscallion]

My ex boyfriend had some really funny ones. When he got a cell phone he got a phone number that belonged to the local heroin dealer. Got some really interesting messages on that number. He liked to mess with them and would send them random times and places some times then give tips to the cops.

This makes me tingle in the bathing suit area. Funny as hell!

Rapscallion

[Beckpatton]

My husband and I had a land line number that was very similar to the local carwash.... I can't imagine what possible reason people would have for calling a carwash, but we used to get calls for them all the time! No sucky callers though.

[iradney]

There's always the old "Let's see how loud & obnoxious a sound we can send to this asshole wrong number caller",favorites include whistles,drums,screaming....

And I like the loud, annoying sound idea to get rid of persistent wrong numbers. I like this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cVlTeIATBs

CS.com does NOT condone violence, or any acts that can result in injury. This includes playing loud noises into a phone that can damage a person's hearing. Having been on the receiving side of loud noises on the phone - it's NOT FUNNY people. Drop it.

[Shalom]

CS.com does NOT condone violence, or any acts that can result in injury. This includes playing loud noises into a phone that can damage a person's hearing. Having been on the receiving side of loud noises on the phone - it's NOT FUNNY people. Drop it.

Yer not kidding, bro. I once hit a prank flash video on the web (pre-Youtube, this was about 2002 or so) that had a very spooky, quiet scene, with suddenly an appearance of a scary face with someone screaming really damn loudly. Couldn't get my headphones off fast enough, and I've had tinnitus in my right ear since then. (This was a Thursday night. Friday morning I woke up actually deaf in that ear. Over the weekend my hearing gradually came back, but there's still residual damage. I wanted to fly out to Japan, find the little wanker who made that flash, and shriek into his ears for ten minutes straight.) So yeah, this can indeed cause injury. Be warned.

Regarding wrong number voice calls: When I was in college, I had a phone number that was one digit off the VA hospital.

It got so bad for a while that my answering machine said, "Hi, you have reached the ____ residence. If you're looking for the VA Hospital, please hang up, put on your glasses, and dial ###-####."

Most people took my word for it, but I had one dingbat that thought I was lying to them and kept saying "Stop goofing around and get me the (whatever) department!" I finally had to tell him, slowly, "Now look. This is not the VA hospital. It is [some bullshit corporate name my roommate made up to get computer parts wholesale]. Their number starts with NX4, ours starts with NX1. You. have. the. wrong! number!" He finally got it.

(Think Bud Abbott saying, "Now listen. Who is not pitching. Who is on..." )

Oh, and regarding wrong number texts: post them here. Especially if they're funny.

[MadMike]

She even said, "ARe you sure?" when I said she had the wrong number. Yeah, I don't know when I'm at an airport. Sheesh.

I had one of those back when I was living by myself in my first apartment. As far as I can tell, someone sent out invites to a family reunion and mistakenly put my number on it. Most of the people took my word for it when I told them they had the wrong number, except for this one twit that called me early on a Saturday morning. I'm not a morning person, and I really hate when someone wakes me up without a good reason. Still, it wasn't her fault that someone screwed up the invitations, so I tried to be nice. She asked me if "I was sure" that this person didn't live with me. Yeah, if someone else was living with me, I think I'd know it.

As if it wasn't bad enough, she called me back a second time to ask me if I was sure that the person she was trying to reach didn't live with me. I wasn't so nice the second time.

[RetailWorkhorse]

go with it. Finally, they stopped calling me! :-p

You are aware that you just jinxed yourself, right?