Harrassment?! I'll give you harrassment!

[Jester]

My name is not particularly common, ditto the last name, although both names have been used as TV character's names so they aren't super-unusual. But until college I'd never met anyone with the same name as myself.

This actually happened to my friend when he moved down here to Key West. His name is Jack Terry, neither name being hugely uncommon in itself.

So, he goes into a restaurant to apply for a job. He fills out the application, and goes to talk to the manager.

JACK: "Hi, I'm Jack Terry, I'm here to apply for the opening you advertised."
MANAGER: "You CAN'T be Jack Terry!"
JACK: "Um, yes. I am. Why?"
MANAGER: [pointing to a server working there] "Because THAT'S Jack Terry!"

Jack got the job.

Later, they both ended up working together at ANOTHER bar.

Freaky stuff.

[skeptic53]

My brother has the same name as a TV star, he disappoints a lot of desk clerks when he travels.

[Dips]

Two stories:

1. Before we were married, my husband used to sleep in a bedroom off the front room at his stepdad's trucking company and warehouse. He'd pick up the phone after hours because that was the only way his friends could reach him (my now FIL was OK with this as long as he was polite when a customer called). He got a lot of calls for a nice restauarant in the same town.

One guy wouldn't believe that Mystic Warehouse/Currier's Express and Backstreet were not the same thing. He kept trying to make reservations and kept calling back when Mr. Dips hung up.

Finally Mr. Dips took the reservations, but made sure to make up an incredibly unlikely name so that no real employees at the restaurant would get in trouble. I think it was something like "Make sure you tell them that Juan Pierre Carlos, the maitre d', took these reservations."

It was kind of a snooty place, so I'm sure they sent the jerk packing after he made a fool of himself.

2. We have a fairly uncommon last name and it just so happens there is another family in town with the same name. The father also happens to have the same FIRST name as my husband. The other guys had an unlisted number. If we got a wrong number we couldn't give them the right one because we didn't know it. He also got a lot of calls from bill collectors and other persistant people who didn't believe us when we said they had the wrong Mr. Dips.

Anyway, the other Mr. Dips must have missed some important calls because he called us and asked us to give out his number when he got an important call.

So we did. Everybody who called got his number, including bill collectors and telmarketers.

Then he called us back. He only wanted us to give out his number to people he wanted to talk to. I politely told him that if he wanted his calls screened, he would have to pay for a secretary to do it and we weren't interested in the job. His choices were we give it to everyone or we give it to no-one. He decided on no-one, but we've noticed that he no longer has an unlisted number. He either learned his lesson or didn't pay his phone bill.

From what I understand he now gets some wrong numbers meant for us, but at least we have a listed number so people CAN reach us.

[myswtghst]

The funny thing is, with my cell phone nonsense listed above, is that I've had the same phone number for at least 5 or 6 years, and some of the wrong numbers have started up VERY recently, as in, the last few months. The weirdest was a guy calling for some cement company, who simply could not believe it was my personal cell phone number.

At my work, we do a lot of out calling, especially if we're trying to follow up with a customer to make sure the tech isn't lying when he says that he fixed their trouble, and we get to make all kinds of wrong numbers. People get angry with us, but hey, we can only work with what we're given. I've also had customers call in angry that their case was closed without their permission, only to have me explain to them that we couldn't reach them as the phone number they gave us was no good.

[Seshat]

For a couple of months, we were constantly getting calls for Mr A. Eventually, someone called who said 'but he gave us this number yesterday'.

They were kind enough to promise to ask him to stop giving out our number as his. We never did find out if he was deliberately giving out the wrong number.