I only work office hours

[Darkforge]

Argh, so my computer ate up what amounted to several pages of typing so long story short (Yeah I know, this is the short version):

I work fro a small company in the utilities industry, we are open 9-5 mon-fri only (sometimes we leave at 4 on fridays). I had a customer, Becky who bought a place but the previous tennants had left with no forwarding details and a large debt.

So we asked her for legal proof she was now responsible for the place (ie a lease or tenancy agreement etc) so we know what date to close the old tennants account on and when to bill Becky from on a clean slate.

Becky said that she would provide the documents by post so we gave her the address but no letter came.

Becky said she would fax so we gave her the fax number, but no fax came.

Becky said she would scan them and email them so i gave her my email address, but no email came.

3 months later becky got fed up of us calling her and asked us to not call again, so we told her what we needed to prevent disconnection of her utilities and our contact details and stopped chasing her.

Fast forward another two months to this Saturday, where I am chilling with some mates and get a call on my mobile from an unknown number. so I answer.

Me: Hi, this is darkforge
Becky: Thank god, its becky here. Why can't i get you on the office phone, it keeps going to voicemail?
Me: Well I'm not in the office right now, we are only open 9-5 monday to friday. If you call at the office phone on Monday morning I'm sure we will be able to assist you.
Becky: No, i need you to help me now
Me: Wait, how did you get my phone number? I never give my mobile out to customers, heck noone at work knows my mobile number except my boss, who would never give it out.
Becky: Well when I couldn't reach you at the office I tried your email and got an out of office reply, then i noticed that your email was [firstname.lastname@company.com] and had your work address so I did a bit of searching and rang your house, and your housemate gave me this number...
Me: ok, so why do you need to contact me this urgently?
Becky: Well I've got bailiffs here trying to disconnect my utilities. you said you could stop them from disconnecting me.
Me: Well, I told you about 6 months ago that if you provide us with a copy of your lease then we could stop the disconnection. If I remember correctly you said you would deal with it and send us the documents. did you send said documents?
Becky:No
Me: well that is the only way to stop the bailiffs who have a legal right to do what they are doing with a warrant, you'll have to contact us during office hours in order to get yourself reconnected. Please contact us at xxxx-xxxx-xxx between the hours of 9-5, monday to friday. Thankyou [click]

[BaristaTrav]

I'm guessing your phone rang/buzzed again a couple more times soon after.. and was ignored.

Your housemate needs a good b*tchslapping..

[Exaspera]

So she had the time and the smarts enough to get ahold of you in an emergency, yet had no time or smarts to do what she she could have done much more easily several months ago, and now she's attempting to make it your problem. LOL!

[Mystic]

I doubt she told the housemate what the call was about or completely caught them off guard in deer-in-headlights position. Still, that's disturbing that she spent her time tracking you down. :\

[Amina516]

What a dim lightbulb she was.

I agree with Trav's bitchslap suggestion. Giving a number to someone who you dont even know? Not very smart.

[Android Kaeli]

That's one of the reasons why we don't give employee phone numbers out to people, this person might have claimed to be a friend of the OP or something to get the cell number.

I get customers every once in a while that claim that they are of such and such relations to one of the employees. If they really are of such and such relations with employee, why don't they have their number already?

[bainsidhe]

I'm also surprised you didn't verbally b*tch slap her. I mean seriously?!?

[cinema guy]

It is kind of worrying that it is that easy to find someone.

Hopefully she is just stupid and not psycho.

[scruff]

I'm now getting flashbacks to my last house.
The Landlord warned us up-front that the last tenant moved out leaving big utility bills.
No problem, Landlord has told, and I also tell, the electricity and gas companies that we are the new tenants, and send them copies of our new rental contact.
Electric engineer visits, I point out the nice new modern meter on the outside of the house (new UK meters are usually in locked white boxes outside homes), he happily reads the electric meter without needing to enter the house.

A week later, another bloke turns up on the doorstep. He claims he's working for the elec board.
Now, I took part in the anti-poll tax marches (UK 1990). One big tell we learnt was baliffs could legally correctly describe themselves as working for the local council, whilst accidently avoiding mentioning that they actually worked for a debt collection company that had been _hired_ by the local council. And that if you let them in, you were screwed.

So, chap wants access to my home? No. Flat no.
He wants to read the meter. Sure. It's outside, you don't need to enter the house.
He wants a look around? Do I look like I was born yesterday? The meter is outside, and was read last week. F. O. A. D.
Oh, you want to speak to *old lodger*? He moved out months ago, landlord will confirm that.
No, I'm not married to the old lodger.
Yes, I can prove my identity, I can show you my passport.
No, my passport is not in my old maiden name.
Seriously, I'm not married to the old lodger.
Oh, now you're calling me a lier. Whilst claiming you're a random meter reader...
Fortunatly I'm 6 foot tall and a couple of foot wide (ish), so I block dooorways nicely.
:-)

[Andara Bledin]

That's one of the reasons why we don't give employee phone numbers out to people, this person might have claimed to be a friend of the OP or something to get the cell number.

This is also why you don't have full names on company email addresses, either.

^-.-^

[mikoyan29]

This is also why you don't have full names on company email addresses, either.

^-.-^

that might be why EDS had those cryptic e-mails.

[Rantsylvania 6-5000]

I would have been tempted to say, "Are you stalking me?!". It is possible to get a lot of information about someone online these days, but really, that's just creepy! I hate that she had the nerve to call you on your personal phone, on your own time too!

[Darkforge]

This is also why you don't have full names on company email addresses, either.

Yeah, thats why our emails have now changed from john.doe@company.com to johnd@companyname.com (though our it guy has still got it set up so that our old email redirects to our new addresses)

as for all the comments about not giving out numbers I taught my roommate the trick I learnt back at my old work. If person A rings up asking for a number for person B, say you don't have it to hand, but you can take person A's details and ask person B to call you back.

That way person B gets the choice.

[Whiskey]

Severely beat your housemates like right now. Jesus, I cant imagine customers calling my personal cell phone whenever they felt they needed to be assisted. What the....? Also, what kind of person takes it upon them selves to contact a rep outside of business hours. Unless you're my closest friend, I wouldn't get in personal contact with anyone, let alone actively seek them out.

You're going to wake up one night with this person standing outside your bedroom window, watching you sleep. I'm calling it now.

[Darkforge]

You're going to wake up one night with this person standing outside your bedroom window, watching you sleep. I'm calling it now.

Thankfully our old address is in the phonebook (we took our number with us when we moved) and when we moved we took the opportunity to go ex directory, so when the new phonebooks come out we won't be in them but still, it scares me.

also I'm on the 4th floor so I'd probably be more amazed at how she learned to fly...