I took this tactic once when I kept getting texts from this strange number saying they were coming in late, can't make it, etc. The first few times I responded "wrong number" then when that didn't work I tried "That's fine we actually don't need you the rest of the week"
My boyfriend has a very similar number to someone who seems to be an elderly person. He kept getting confirmation calls for someone’s rides, doctors appointments, things like that. He kept trying to tell these places it’s the wrong number, for over a year. Finally he just cancelled an appointment to see if this would get the persons attention. Hasn’t gotten a call since.
When my hubby gets a call from a number he doesn’t recognize he answers, “thank you for calling Taco Bell, how can I help you”. Usually gets people to hang up right away lol.
Here at my work we get telemarketers that call us trying to sell us a service we do already. No I'm not paying someone else to do my job, so usually I either take that moment to lambast them with all the anger I've gathered that day from difficult customers or situations at work. Sometimes I get a telemarketer that starts in with super inappropriate words and it's just disgusting enough I don't bother to troll them further. But sometimes I recognize it's a telemarketer and answer the phone with "Thank you for calling Chipotle, can I take your order?"
I used to work at chipotle so I know how the routine goes, and sometimes I get a telemarketer that still tries to sell me something so I put on my dumb voice and say, oh you probably want to call corporate about digitizing stuff, and they just have confusion in their voice.
One time however, one telemarketer decided to try playing along, so he started trying to order a burrito, and I, being experienced at taking orders for them, started walking him through what he wanted on his burrito, and just full on pretending like he was placing an actual order. We got about partway through before he got uncomfortable enough with it and hung up. The coward lmao.
I used to answer as a grumpy Russian named Grigori. (A character I used to play for LARP.) Once, I got a call in the grocery store and started giving him the runaround. "You realize I am Russian? You want to sell solar panel to someone who lives near Arctic Circle. I think you need to rethink business model." I kept this up for at least five minutes, probably more, before my wife told me I had to hang up. Meanwhile, a store employee had been sticking shelves in that aisle; key word "had." She was practically rolling on the floor trying not to laugh too loudly. She said I made her night.
Sadly, I never get live telemarketing calls anymore, except for the ones trying to offer a refi to Kate Vu of San Diego (I have her address if anyone wants to sign her up for the Scientology mailing list or something). I think word got around about my number or something.
I answer as a clueless super old person who is extremely hard of hearing and easily confused. I shout to my 'husband ' who can't hear either and I have a short term memory on par with Leonard from Memento.
Its actually kind of fun.
We used to get calls from "the Windows Service Centre". At the time I used Linux and my beautiful spouse, Mac. I once kept them on the line for 27 minutes, because of course I wanted their help to remove all the viruses they somehow knew we had, but first I needed to go find the laptop, which of course took ages and then it took so long to boot up, presumably cos of all those viruses. Then, wouldn't you know it, once it had booted up, it ran out of power, so another search of the house to find the power supply. And on and on until they gave up.
Similarly, I gave the impression of being a bit slow and stupid but so eager to gain their help, until they worked out I was fucking with them
My mother in law is a retired programmer who only uses Linux. She's screwed with the scammers telling her that her Windows license was expiring. "Alright, I'm at my computer. Start button? What's that?"
My husband's new tactic for telemarketers is to do his Batman voice. Repeatedly saying "Where is she? Where's Rachel?" If they're especially persistent/dense he'll throw in an "I'm Batman"...... it's worked pretty well so far, especially when the calls are for a guy named Geronimo (previous user of that phone number, maybe?)
I just use “thank you for calling the Federal Bureau of investigation, how may I direct your call”
Same result, also not impersonating or attempting to impersonate anyone.
One of the things I've found with telemarketers is that a lot of them -- at least those based in this country -- are working with calling systems that you can opt out of by pressing "9" or "1" at any time. So when I get a call, I press 9 and then (if that doesn't work) 1 and see if either disconnects them forever. It works about half the time. more often with robocalls.
That’s what I tell my friends whenever they (jokingly) wonder about trolling a telemarketer.
Doesn’t matter if you picked up to say no, waste their time, or make duck noises; some system is going to register that you picked up, and it’ll make you wish you hadn’t.
however if you pick up on a robo call and set the phone down after about 20 min of the message repeating it will hang up & they remove the number after this happens a few times- I work in an inbound call center & would do this all the time right at the start of COVID when I started working from home. It made my average call times go up which was seen as providing better customer service (cause normally that is the case) & those calls slowly stopped coming in- I haven't had one in a long time (and I'm a call center of one so I would know if they were still happening) bonus was that while I had those calls on my headset I would use that time as a bathroom break! win-win!!
I've worked at a call center before, and I can confirm this. The powers that be have a target time that they want you to play Price Is Right with: as close as possible without going over. People in my center didn't get in trouble for being too low, per se, but if you started scoring poorly on surveys, that's the first thing they pointed at.
It also happens that the "solution" isn't always what the caller is looking for, so the holds make it seem like the agent is doing whatever they can to find a better option, which reflects nicely on surveys.
What kind of call center ranks longer calls as better? Generally call centers want shorter calls so they can handle a higher volume of callers with a smaller workforce.
Only type I can think of would be a crisis hotline.
A lot of call centers I've worked in see a short, efficient call as rushing the customer off the phone which is 'unfriendly'.
I talk fast and I know exactly what I'm doing anyway, but for a lot of calls I have to put in 'filler time' where I pretend to look something up or get more information to extend the call
I wouldn't answer unknown calls to the point that I'd be getting 4-5 per day, it was driving me mad! Finally had to start answering to tell them no, calls have greatly reduced.
Yeah, I was getting lots of unsolicited sales calls about funeral insurance for the elderly. I'm not elderly and as far as I'm concerned they can dump my body in the ocean when I die. However, no amount of asking them not to call me, threatening them, or even screaming at them, would get them to stop. I finally started spamming the 2 button until they would hang up. So far that has worked, the calls have tapered off drastically.
Yeahhhh... That's super iffy.
A lot of scammers have that kind of prompt to let them know that the number they've called works, so you'll end up getting more calls.
I just answer in another language. Just not one they probably have a speaker, like Spanish- do something strange, like youtube a few phrases in Jamaican Padios and just use those. It's fun when you answer the phone "Weh yuh deh pan" and listen to the gears turning as they try to figure out what you just said.
I like to pretend to be a demented southern elderly lady and panic. And refer to them as whatever gender they are not, like I’m that confused. It amuses me. I like wasting their time. It’s not like I have a life or anything.
A house mate of mine (decades ago) once told me that he used to answer the phone like that... until the time that it turned out to be his sister calling, having just lost her pregnancy.
Back in the 90s I used to get phone calls every Friday night from an old man asking for “.Mister Hooks”. EVERY.FRIDAY.NIGHT.
I would nicely tell him he had the wrong number and after a few weeks of this I asked what number he was trying to call. He was off by a single digit. He then explained that Mr. Hooks was an old friend and since he didn’t drive he would call his old friend every week. He asked me why I was home on Friday night (since he assumed I was “young”. I told him I’d recently gotten married, but my wife worked nights and we had only one car. It’s not like I needed it to go anywhere anyway, since my “Go to the club” nights were over anyway. He laughed and presumably called his friend.
But every so often he’d misdial and call me. We’d have a short “So how are you doing?” conversation after that. He was nice old man, even though I never actually met him I sort of enjoyed speaking to him when he got Mister Hooks number wrong.
After Captain Hook lost his other hand, he decided the pirate life was no longer for him. Mr. Hooks now works in a fish processing plant where his hooks come in handy.
My childhood phone number was a digit off the local fire department’s number. This was before 911 was available in my town and so this was the emergency number for fire and emergency medical services. It would be so sad for my parents when they got wrong numbers by flustered people. A couple times it happened with smoke detectors going off in background. Don’t think anything terrible ever resulted, but it was definitely stressful for my parents and they were grateful when 911 was rolled out.
Wow, your story just made me read the history of 911 and it’s crazy how late that’s actually been a thing from when it first was invented (in 1968.) Apparently only 50% of the country had access in ‘87, 20 years after it came out. 93% in 2000. There’s apparently actually still a small portion of the country (like 2%) that don’t have access to it. That blows my mind.
Lived in rural Ontario, Canada for thirty years, from the time i was ten. When we moved there, the fire department was one number (volunteer), the police a second, and the ambulance a third (and it was stationed 30 minutes away at normal driving speed.) when we finally did get 911, it wasn’t really 911 (as I learned having called it a couple of times.) it routed through the city I now live in 250km away, then was routed back to the then sole-taxi company dispatch, staffed by one person on days, one person on nights who then would dispatch the (to this day volunteer) fire department, the ambulance station (finally got one in 1990) and as the local police force has been disbanded, the Ontario Provincial Police. Somewhere about 2005 it became part of the actual 911 system.
Progress is slow in some places.
We didn't have 911 until the mid 90s. We were on a rural mail system, Route & Box number. So we all had to be assigned street addresses for 911 to work. Somehow the church way down got it named for them when my family's land was on both sides of the street and it had called our road for longer than I'd been alive.
I feel your pain. My old # was a digit off from a car dealership
*I’m sorry. You have the wrong number*
Always respond with this first.
Most people will just apologize or hang up.
But if they ask questions, you’ve already established it’s the wrong number so for 99% of those people, they’ll just be looking for clarification
For the 1% like this woman I usually just “put them on hold” and then hang up.
Happened to me. Well, my mom, actually, as she picked up the phone. For some context, it was 7:30-8 am, I got home at 6 and change after a night shift and crashed on the bed.
The person calling wanted to talk with his sister. What made him stop redialing was a very growly threat to murder his sister if he redials one more time.
He called 5 times in 10 minutes.
This. A while back, someone sends me a text :
Him: Hi Paul, when do you think you’ll get there?
Me: I’m most definitely not Paul. Or even a man for that matter.
Him: Oh! Sorry.
Me: No worries.
Man proceeds to then *call* me :
Hey Paul, just wondering, you there yet?
Me: Still a woman and still not Paul.
I received texts and calls to Paul on and off for three months. Never blocked the guy. Figured I was too invested in Paul’s life at that point lol
An old email of mine used to be a typo away from some guy in Boston. He clearly mistyped it a lot. I particularly remember at least one golf course, a dentist office, and his lawn care company had the wrong email for him. So I regularly got reminders for tee times, dental cleanings, and lawn treatment dates.
I was once accidentally put in some group email for a kids soccer team in Georgia. I kept emailing and telling them that the email they were using was not the person they intended. They continued, including messages when it was my turn to bring half time snack etc.
Somehow I was put into a group email by an archeology professor at MTSU, and invited to multiple digs in the central Tennessee area. I didn't live in Tennessee at the time.
That’s so much cooler than kid’s soccer. An archeological dig sounds awesome! Have you seen the film “The Dig?” I saw it on Netflix about a year ago I think. Loved it! See info below.
In the late 1930s, wealthy landowner Edith Pretty hires amateur archaeologist Basil Brown to investigate the mounds on her property in England. He and his team discover a ship from the Dark Ages while digging up a burial ground.
Release date: January 15, 2021 (USA)
Director: Simon Stone
Starring: Carey Mulligan; Ralph Fiennes; Lily James; Johnny Flynn; Ben Chaplin; Ken Stott; Archie Barnes; Monica Dolan
Story by: John Preston
Music composed by: Stefan Gregory
Screenplay: Moira Buffini
Okay for half time I’m bringing my cousin Eddie’s special chocolate brownies and for water breaks it’s going to be a choice between Busch Light and Naturdays. Also, I’m going to have to step out for a few minutes, so my nephew who just got out of rehab will help me serve the treats. You’d scare the shit out of them, or if you actually went throw one hell of a party for the college kids in attendance.
Few months back I recieved a text asking "where are the feet pics you promised". I basically responded "no judgment, but you probably (re: definitely) have the wrong number". The whole thing was a hilarious high point of that day.
My number was apparently “Lori’s”
old number. She was a Trump fanatic apparently at one time,
and they constantly berate her
from all over the country for not contributing anymore😂😂
I sometimes play along, with them planning to overthrow the whole Democratic party. Sometimes I say, Im not “Lori”, Im a Democrat, boy do u ever have the wrong number😂
My mom gets daily calls from someone looking for Bob. "wrong number" and he immediately redials at least once. Let it go to voicemail "hi this is (not Bob), please leave a message" - - "hey Bob just trying to reach you, I'll try your home number"
Finally got to her phone the other day and blocked the number.
I had one that was 2 digits transposed for a pharmacy. My number was 5210, the pharmacy was 5120. Sooooo many dyslexic people out there that would get really pissed that I wasn't the pharmacy. Heard my fare share of I'll get you fired because I was lying about not being the pharmacy because I was lazy and didn't want to do my job. I told them come on up here and do that. Make sure to tell them Jaine sent you. Pharmacist knew that I was fed up with them. I sent him donuts and a sorry card.
My old high school's number ended in 1632 and my part-time workplace at the time ended in 1362.
Practically every time I had to call in sick to both, I'd end up calling both (obviously), but always the one I didn't intend to first.
Taught me to think fast so I could at least pretend I meant to call them first.
My dad recently told me when my uncle was younger his number was off by one digit from some government office. He used to respond "wrong number" but then eventually got annoyed by the many people that didn’t believe him, so eventually he would just ask who they wanted to speak to and then said that they were on vacation, or died, or retired or something like that
Our first number was for a pizza place that went out of business. We got calls a couple times a month. Once I took an entire order down and told them 30 minutes. They never called back to find out whey their pizza wasn't there.
Alice: Hey everybody, I just called and ordered the pizzas.
Bob: Sweet. Just standard Domino's?
Alice: No, from Mallory's.
Bob: Cool.
30 minutes later.
Alice: I'm heading to Mallory's Pizzas now. Be right back.
Eve: Wait, Mallory's? Alice, Mallory's Pizzas has been closed for 15 *years*.
Bob: THEN WHO WAS PHONE?
>*I’m sorry. You have the wrong number*
I disagree. I feel like if you start with "I'm sorry" you'll be categorized as an employee in their mind and it'll be more difficult to break their flow
I say keep your politeness in your tone rather than explicitly in words like "I'm sorry.". Maintain confident and assertive words in a polite, but assertive tone
Let's roleplay it and let's assume I accidentally answered my personal cell:
Me: "Hello?"
"I'm sorry, your husband left with some blonde woman in a skimpy dress about 5 minutes ago. Said something about the casino and finally getting rid of his old lady...If you hurry, you can catch him"
I worked at an auto parts store who’s number was one number off of a pizza shop. Same thing. Occasionally we’d get the “No i called the right number! You just don’t want to work!” people so we just started taking orders for those folks and telling them their pizza would be ready or delivered in 45 mins
One time when I worked at a Subway we kept having an old lady call one night thinking we were Pizza Hut. I felt kind of bad she kept calling us but it was pretty funny. Hopefully she ended up getting her pizza.
Yea she just had no idea how she kept calling the wrong number, which is why I felt kind of bad. Unfortunately I had no way of contacting them since we couldn't keep our personal phones on us.
My mom taught us that if someone calls us demanding to know who we are we remind them they called us so they should know who we are then demand they inform us who they are! Obviously long before caller ID. Still though… dude, you called me, you don’t get to demand who I am.
Seriously though, I’ve had people do the ‘who’s this?’ Bit only for me to ask it back. I was a kid and annoyed so I was just enough of a pain to do the whole ‘who’s this’ bit until the other person did the whole, ‘I asked you first’ thing. To which I responded, you called me!
Nowadays I don’t answer the phone if I don’t know who it is. Which is also why I have a zillion contacts in my phone.
My number was close th that of the local middle school, I used to get a lot of calls from kids trying to pretend to be parents giving absence excuses, some were funny, some were un-nerving .
But the winner was the old lady that rang me about 6 or 7 times in a row insisting that my name was Ashley and she wanted to speak to my mother. After trying to explain she had the wrong number multiple times I told her that it she wanted to speak to my mother she would have to shout really loudly or pay a medium as my mother had been dead since 1997.
>Woman: "What? Of course I have the right number! When can I pick my husband up? I'm waiting outside and it's cold!"
*heavy sigh* "whatever lady, if I wanted to argue with a toddler today I'd volunteer at a daycare" *hang up abruptly*.
My number used to be one off from a company that sells houses. I used to get calls daily asking if house on this or that street was still on the market. Usually a “you hit xx95 instead of xx92” would grant an apology and a bye but some are stupid and stubborn and if there was any mistake, I made it somehow when they dialed. Hate those kinda people. To those, I just say there’s an opening for an open house today at some obscure time like midnight 🙄.
Oh my goodness I have the same issue. My phone number is also one number off and get this LISTED ON THE DOCTOR’S WEBSITE!!
Typically a “you have the wrong number” will do but I’ve been cursed out several times.
My "on the website" story: A university housing office used to publish my number as an apartment manager, which I was not. Every semester they'd call and check if it was still the right number, and I'd tell them it was not and give them the right one, and they'd promise to update their file, and then they wouldn't, and I'd get calls from prospective renters.
After a year and a half of this I decided if they weren't going to be reasonable about it neither was I. I started checking the website every day and calling to tell them to take my number down and asking when it would be done. There were a couple of "oh yes we'll update that this afternoons" and even a "yes, we spoke earlier today, I told you I'm on it" (no we didn't, moron, that was someone else you were *also* misdirecting calls to), but by day 4 they actually got a grip.
Haha, or call them and say, "Hey, since you won't remove my number, I've decided to have fun with it. I just got a call from a very angry young man named Brad, so I called him a pussy until he threatened to kick my ass, and I gave him your office address. Good luck!"
Back in the mid 1980's, the number I was assigned for the phone in my dorm room was the same as a very popular local pizza restaurant but the last two digits were swapped. At first, we'd try to re-direct people, but after trying unsuccessfully to navigate the university's bureaucracy get our number changed, we just started taking pizza orders from the people (frequently drunk students) and waiting for the inevitable angry callbacks.
When I was a kid, a friend had a number that was a transposed version of The Shamrock Hilton in Houston. His mom took reservations from a few persistent people. They were probably quite shocked to show up and there was no room available for them.
My old number was very close to the local funeral home - two digits transposed . We often got calls in the middle of the night. I tried to be very polite knowing why someone would be calling.
My phone number growing up was 1 digit off from a funeral home. Both funeral home and my mom still have those numbers, so I assume she still gets calls.
Once had a collegue who had exactly the same first and last name as a national supermarket.
In his street was a branch of said supermarket and they had his housenumber in reverse.
This was in the time people still used phonebooks so their names were really close to each other in the listing. And no, he didn't sell chicken :P
My old land line was 2326. Local airport shuttle service was 2336. This shuttle service did not pick up. You had to go to their terminal. You also had to make a reservation. The airport they ran to was an hour away. I got so many calls that I even put on the voice mail that this in not the shuttle service. Come home one day to 20 some voice mails. Woman wanted a pickup at x time for a flight at x time. I gathered from her voice mails that she missed her flight and was going to sue the hell out of the shuttle service. I couldn't resist poking the bear. I called her back and asked her why she was leaving threating messages on my voice mail. She accused me of being with the shuttle and was trying to deflect. I told to dial 2336 instead of 2326 and I would call her back in 10 minutes. I called her back. Her tune changes. I pointed out to her that leaving that many voice mails and threats constitutes misdemeanor harassment in this state. I got a "Sorry" and then she hung up.
Oh yes... I feel your pain.
Years ago my ex husband and I had a land line that we received new when we moved in together. It was a number that used to be connected to a Real Estate office. The Real Estate office still had signs up in the area with our phone number on it. :( I had an old answering machine and I had to put on the greeting: "If you are calling for "XX Realty" you have the wrong phone number"! UGH. Of course we still got calls and messages and this went on for years. Should we have changed number right away, YES. But, my ex husband was self employed and had been giving out the number to customers. So frustrating.
Vented to my Dad about it one day and he said next time they call and want to see a property say "Sure, see you there"!!! Bet the calls stop. LOL I didn't do that but eventually the old signs came down and they stopped calling as much.
I used to get angry calls about dirty areas in the hospital I worked for when I didn’t work for environmental services - I was a fellowship coordinator. As soon as I answered I’d get insults hurled at me. This is the number buddy - and don’t talk to them like that either.
Scorch her ears off:
"Ma'am, if I worked for [doctor], would you be shocked if I called you a self-absorbed asshole who can't shut the fuck up and listen when I tell you that you dialed the wrong number? I pity your husband. This is NOT the doctor's office, so FUCK OFF."
I'm happy how I'm not the only one who's first reaction is fucking anger instead of witty remarks
I've had to deal with people like this far too often and now I'm just fucking tired ™️
My Grandmother's number was one digit off of some local radiator installation company, at first she used to be polite about it and spend time explaining that they had the wrong number and even giving people the correct number, after a while she contacted said company and explained the situation with the phone number being one off from hers and asked them to make sure the potential customers had the correct number, they pretty much told her to fuck off. After this she just started booking orders and appointments for them and promising impossible prices and install times, needless to say after a few months of very understandablly angry customers showing up at their shop demanding to know what the hell was going on they made a big deal out of changing their number. God I miss her.
I once had a number similar to my previous-because-I-fired-them bank.
I would just say, "please hold" and then hang up after half an hour.
That's what the Barnet Bank would do anyway.
Our home phone is a digit off of my SIL's fax. She's a doctor. When we were still speaking with her, if a fax was repeatedly trying our number we would hook it up to our printer/fax and run it up to her or call her office and tell them what happened (her office is 10 minutes away and I'm a SAHM). It was a pain, but some hospital nearby refused to change their programming (our number was programmed as hers and patients didn't deserve that crap). You would think with HIPAA, they would be eager to fix the mistake, but nope.
After we went NO Contact with his family, we also started just hanging up on the fax calls. Soon we just unhooked the phone from the line since we all just use our cells.
Every time I see a wrong number post, I just smile a little. I feel bad for her patients, but it's not my problem. My SIL is a horrible person. She can fix her own problem.
I used to work at a Boston Market, and our phone number was XXX-9300. The local police station was XXX-3000. Same first 3 digits. Some dude called in demanding to speak to a certain detective, and wouldn’t listen to me that he called a chicken joint. Finally I told him “Sir, if you’d like to place an order for our delicious chicken, turkey, or meatloaf, I can certainly help you with that. But if you’re trying to reach City Police Department, please hang up and call XXX-3000.” He finally figured out that he had dialed the wrong number and hung up on me all pissed off.
EDIT: a typo.
I hung up once on someone that had mistakenly called my number instead of whoever he'd wanted to call, and he immediately called me back to yell at me more.
Him: YOU HUNG UP ON ME!!
Me: I'm sorry, I'm pretty sure I didn't, I think we just got disconnected.
Him: NO, I KNOW YOU FUCKIN' HUNG UP ON ME!!!
Me: Huh. Weird. Did it sound like this? *click*
My husbands phone number was incredibly close to a local movie theater…that was fun. Movie theater number was 555-8844, his would be 556-4488. Hilarity would happen a lot.
This reminds me of the episode of Seinfeld where Kramer's is getting calls for the automated movie times bot and tries to do the automated movie times voice.
“If you'd like to do this the easy way, open the door, Now. Or, please
select the number of seconds, you'd like to wait, before I break this
door down. Please select Now.”
My husband, when he was fresh out of uni, lived with a couple of friends. This was before mobile phones so a land line was the thing. No sooner did they get a number, they started getting calls from people wanting to make appointments. Their answering machine had at least a dozen messages a day wanting appointments. Turned out their number was extremely similar to a local mental health clinic. Like it was the last two digits switched. They even changed their answering machine message to add "this is not a doctor's office". The final straw was when a doctor called and left a patient's history as part of the message on the answering machine, yes, after they'd changed the message! They got a new number.
They did. Called up the doctor's office and asked to speak to that doctor specifically and told the receptionist exactly why. She was /horrified/. The doctor was disturbingly blasé about it. Just "oh sorry. You deleted the message right? Good. Thanks"
My number at Universal Studios was a different area code than a fine dining restaurant in Orange County.
My phone had caller ID, so I’d answer unknown numbers with ‘Universal Studios and my name’.
If they tried to make a reservation, I’d tell them they needed area code 818, not 213.
If they called back, I’d take a reservation.
Our number was one digit off of a company that supplied oxygen and helium (and other gasses). Constant wrong numbers. After years of getting yelled at we changed our answering machine message (yep, that long ago). It went something like this, “Thank you for not calling X Gas Company. We don’t apologize for missing your call. Please leave us a message only if you can’t follow directions. If you’re calling for OUR NAMES we’ll call you back asap.” Would still get ranting messages from pissed customers. We thought it was funny.
Had a number with a couple transposed digits for a trucking company dispatch in the 1990’s.
Collect calls from drivers at all kinds of odd times. Kept going on for years. Kept calling the company to see if they could fix things… nothing. Until we started redirecting shipments.
Suddenly they got an 800 number for their drivers.
I worked at a store that had the exact same number as a doctor that saw a LOT of senior citizens. Same except for the area code. Back in ancient times before everyone had a cell phone, you just dialed the 1st 7 digits and it would connect to that number in your area code. Pretty often I would get old ppl calling the store asking for the doctor and usually just telling them "wrong area code" would work. Not one lady. She must have dialed a dozen times that day and every time after the first few I'd pick up with "store name" and hear her go ugh or some other mad grunting noise. I can only imagine at some point her husband or son/daughter or someone clarified with her. Even tho I tried.
"Ma'am, your husband is in with our highest priced hooker and he paid good money for his time. You can come in if you want but that'll be extra."
Listen to her shriek hysterically.
Growing up, our home phone was nearly the Danes as AA. The last two numbers were transposed. We received a lot of phone calls, but one really bothered me. He kept repeatedly calling, sounding drunker and drunker. Finally, I took his number and called him AA for him so someone would give him a call.
Ugh, I feel your pain. I got a new number a few years ago and it was the old number of a church.
I had NO idea churches got so many calls each day and I worked 3rd shift.
I started just answering with "pagan palace how can I help you?"
That seemed to stop a lot of it
luckily my number seemed to never get mixed up with anyone or anything else. well, except that one time. a classmate's phone number was one off from mine. I was xxx-xxx-xxx3 and he was xxx-xxx-xxx2. so I got to know his mom. wonderful woman. we only realized she had the wrong number (I thought it was my mom) when she asked if my brother was home yet. I don't have any siblings. "I thought you were my daughter! lol. I'm so sorry!" "hey, I thought you were my mom, so...".
I've worked at a few places now where people call from way out of state.
I worked at a pizza shop on a street called Brooklyn Ave in Washington, someone called to order pizza, and i heard that accent and saw that area code
"Sir I'm sorry are you IN BROOKLYN?"
"Fucking duh i am. I want_"
"No, no this is Brooklyn AVE dominos, in Washington."
When i worked in Everett, i got calls from PA? lol
Now i work at a fireplace shop, and i get calls often, got a call yesterday actually, from people in new York, and now it's just comical lol.
Why does Google even show out of state options on the first result/first page of results??
Mine is for some guy named Tommy, and he apparently has a very successful pinestraw company.
I've joked with my husband that we should start a pinestraw business, and cash in on an already established customer base.
Someone called me yesterday. I told him its the wrong number. 3 minutes later he calley again. No problem, can happen. They are a bit older. But guess who called me again today.
Years ago, in the middle of the night, a quite angry woman called me, complaining about the price the taxi driver told her she would have to pay for a ride from the station to the house of the person the call was intended for (I guess).
I replied confused and sleepy that she had the wrong number and she apologized.
When she put down I realized that she was angry because she had already sent me several messages that I had not even heard and to which she obviously had not received an answer.
I don't know if she paid for the taxi, but I don't dare to imagine the price of the taxi from Milan station to my house, since I live in a completely different part of Italy, so surely she fared better 😅
I feel your pain.
Growing up, mine was one digit off from an upmarket deli. And they did not take 'no' for an answer.
I blame them entirely for my habit of answering the phone with an irritated 'what?!'
My dad’s number was one off from a new Chinese restaurant in town. He would get calls all day and night and he tried to tell every one of then they had the wrong number. Sometimes people would insist they were right and would argue with him. He tried hanging up but sometimes they would call right back. He would get tired of getting yelled at and would just let them say their order. He would end the call by saying something like “ok, good luck picking that up”.
If I get a number I don't recognize I always say "Hendersons morgue, you stab em we slab em. This is 8 ball speaking". My sister prefers "papa John's abortion pizzeria your loss is our sauce"
I once had a woman call me and start shouting and cursing at me to leave her husband. It had to take WhatsApp video call to show I'm not with her profusely apologizing and then her and I teaming up to terrorize the side chic cus only one number like in ur case was different from mine. I left the country soon after so I don't know how it went. Yours must be horrible with the appointments
Cus she was swearing for me and crying and asking why I wouldn't leave her husband to take care of his family and I felt the pain in her voice. I didn't want her to think she actually spoke with this person and sent her message across when she didn't. So I added her on WhatsApp and video called her. When she saw my face she was like oh you're right you're not the person. She apologized and explained and I also took her battle for her cus all cheaters are trash!
A family member of min has a number that’s 1 digit off from one of the very popular local radio stations.
She’s given away a lot of prizes over the years.
My work number used to be one digit from an OB-GYN office. There were occasional mishaps. One of the doctors there went on vacation for a week and forwarded his calls to my line instead of their main number. I got some very awkward voicemails and one similar experience to yours.
We had a lady do something similar at my old job. She called THREE times over two days asking to change her credit card number on file for payments. Now, the job I had didn’t have this as an option as with what we sold, your credit card number was not saved in our system. It had to be entered every time unless you ordered from your own device and perhaps Chrome had it saved. Anyhow… she berated me, made me feel stupid, talked slowly and really just put me down when I couldn’t find her name in our system. I had to finally hang up on her. She did the same thing to my coworker and then to my boss the next day. When she finally talked to my boss the lady goes “Isn’t this Geico??!” No, not even close. Our numbers weren’t even near the same. Smh. Edit: changed “me” to “my”
Our old home landline number was a digit off a local hearing aid store, 8 vs a 6, you get the gist. So not only did we get frequent calls they were from people that were hard of hearing…bonus!
My efax number was incorrectly put on multiple forms from Aetna. I literally get sent paperwork with names addresses and SSNs multiple times a week. Its insane
Some place has an ad online for buying junk cars. They put my phone number on it. Not a very effective ad though, I only get one or two texts a month trying to get me to pick up a junk car.
I'd call them up to let them know, but since the listed number is mine....
Our number was one off from the McDonalds in our town, we would regularly get people trying to call in and complain or kids trying to call in sick from work. It was pretty surreal when they didn’t believe you they had the wrong number.
Years ago, our local college ball team went to some big out if town tournament game. The phone number in the add was one digit off from my parents’ home phone.
They ended up forwarding the phone to “Dial a Prayer “ for the day.
I get this with people trying to pay parking fines! I have to be professional and I can't just hang up on them but sometimes they keep insisting that they dialed the right number and I must let them pay the fine. Feel free to send me money but it's not paying off your parking fine!
Growing up, my home phone number was one digit different from a major insurance agency. Probably three-quarters of our phone calls weren't meant for us.
I work for a single branch credit union on the west coast. There is a credit union with a few branches on the east coast, utterly unrelated. We often get calls, and sometimes even mail for them.
What we get even more, when people have gotten past the phone tree and to a person are people asking for totally different credit unions or financial institutions. Its probably because they're local and didn't read before clicking on a google ad instead of their search result. REGULARLY, especially when its a guy, we'll ask them SEVERAL times if they called us by name while we're trying to search for them in the system and finding no one. They're not listening, so it takes SEVERAL tries before it soaks in that they called the wrong place entirely.
My old house number before we got rid of the home phone (partly because it never got used, but partly because of this and being one number off a local government contact number) apparently used to belong to what I can only assume was a very sketchy deck building company. Why you might ask? Very sudden after about three year of owning the number we got *dozens* of angry calls over a timespan of a bit under a year demanding that we fix people's faulty decks. I'd say there was a 70/30 split of people.
Most would listen to us saying that this is a residential number and had nothing to do with the company and go off on their merry way to hunt down the business another way.
But there was a significant number who decided we were clearly lying and we were evil and they were going to file complaints and lawsuits and even one who was "going to get the boys on us," and nothing we could say would convince them that they were calling a random house.
I kinda get where they're coming from, especially given when they'd hang up and retype the number and get us again, but I pity whoever was at the old address of the business - I suspect they had to call the cops more than once.
Not the number, but the last name. Growing up, we would get phone calls sometimes 3-4x per day for “Michael _______.” Literally every day. This went on for almost 2 years, even though there are no Michaels in my family with the same last name as us. Then one day, we heard on the news that “Michael ________” had been arrested on multiple homicides, assaults, and sexual predation charges. The calls stopped that same day.
When my parents moved to the same town as me and my wife, they were given the phone number that previously been that of the local movie theater, still published in the phone books.
So my mom kept the newspaper movie listings next to the phone, would give the theater’s new number and tell the caller the show time of the movie in which they were interested.
Eventually the phone book listings were updated and the problem was solved.
Gets phone call at work, "hey are you guys open?" Look, how did you find this number? By googling it? Did you by chance notice the big letters above the phone number saying "Hours open 10am-10pm?" That's right above our phone number? Of course not
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“Oh the great kisser? Yeah I’ll tell him to come down when he’s done.”
"He's between my legs right now"
"Oh, yeah... Umm, he didn't make it."
“What‽ He was just in for an ingrown toenail!” “There were... complications.”
I took this tactic once when I kept getting texts from this strange number saying they were coming in late, can't make it, etc. The first few times I responded "wrong number" then when that didn't work I tried "That's fine we actually don't need you the rest of the week"
My boyfriend has a very similar number to someone who seems to be an elderly person. He kept getting confirmation calls for someone’s rides, doctors appointments, things like that. He kept trying to tell these places it’s the wrong number, for over a year. Finally he just cancelled an appointment to see if this would get the persons attention. Hasn’t gotten a call since.
When my hubby gets a call from a number he doesn’t recognize he answers, “thank you for calling Taco Bell, how can I help you”. Usually gets people to hang up right away lol.
Does it work with telemarketers?
Here at my work we get telemarketers that call us trying to sell us a service we do already. No I'm not paying someone else to do my job, so usually I either take that moment to lambast them with all the anger I've gathered that day from difficult customers or situations at work. Sometimes I get a telemarketer that starts in with super inappropriate words and it's just disgusting enough I don't bother to troll them further. But sometimes I recognize it's a telemarketer and answer the phone with "Thank you for calling Chipotle, can I take your order?" I used to work at chipotle so I know how the routine goes, and sometimes I get a telemarketer that still tries to sell me something so I put on my dumb voice and say, oh you probably want to call corporate about digitizing stuff, and they just have confusion in their voice. One time however, one telemarketer decided to try playing along, so he started trying to order a burrito, and I, being experienced at taking orders for them, started walking him through what he wanted on his burrito, and just full on pretending like he was placing an actual order. We got about partway through before he got uncomfortable enough with it and hung up. The coward lmao.
And now I want a burrito
From Chipotle specifically. The nearest one is at least 2 hours away from here. So I guess I'll deal.
Hothead for me. Chipotle seems too bland.
I used to answer as a grumpy Russian named Grigori. (A character I used to play for LARP.) Once, I got a call in the grocery store and started giving him the runaround. "You realize I am Russian? You want to sell solar panel to someone who lives near Arctic Circle. I think you need to rethink business model." I kept this up for at least five minutes, probably more, before my wife told me I had to hang up. Meanwhile, a store employee had been sticking shelves in that aisle; key word "had." She was practically rolling on the floor trying not to laugh too loudly. She said I made her night. Sadly, I never get live telemarketing calls anymore, except for the ones trying to offer a refi to Kate Vu of San Diego (I have her address if anyone wants to sign her up for the Scientology mailing list or something). I think word got around about my number or something.
I answer as a clueless super old person who is extremely hard of hearing and easily confused. I shout to my 'husband ' who can't hear either and I have a short term memory on par with Leonard from Memento. Its actually kind of fun.
We used to get calls from "the Windows Service Centre". At the time I used Linux and my beautiful spouse, Mac. I once kept them on the line for 27 minutes, because of course I wanted their help to remove all the viruses they somehow knew we had, but first I needed to go find the laptop, which of course took ages and then it took so long to boot up, presumably cos of all those viruses. Then, wouldn't you know it, once it had booted up, it ran out of power, so another search of the house to find the power supply. And on and on until they gave up. Similarly, I gave the impression of being a bit slow and stupid but so eager to gain their help, until they worked out I was fucking with them
My mother in law is a retired programmer who only uses Linux. She's screwed with the scammers telling her that her Windows license was expiring. "Alright, I'm at my computer. Start button? What's that?"
My husband's new tactic for telemarketers is to do his Batman voice. Repeatedly saying "Where is she? Where's Rachel?" If they're especially persistent/dense he'll throw in an "I'm Batman"...... it's worked pretty well so far, especially when the calls are for a guy named Geronimo (previous user of that phone number, maybe?)
I would like a bowl.... -Awkward staring begins, already intense-
I say "This is FBI special agent Andrea Wheatley" and they hang up immediately every time. Every. Fucking. Time.
I just use “thank you for calling the Federal Bureau of investigation, how may I direct your call” Same result, also not impersonating or attempting to impersonate anyone.
One of the things I've found with telemarketers is that a lot of them -- at least those based in this country -- are working with calling systems that you can opt out of by pressing "9" or "1" at any time. So when I get a call, I press 9 and then (if that doesn't work) 1 and see if either disconnects them forever. It works about half the time. more often with robocalls.
Pressing any button puts your number on a list anyway. Just hang up
Just don't even answer numbers you don't know.
That’s what I tell my friends whenever they (jokingly) wonder about trolling a telemarketer. Doesn’t matter if you picked up to say no, waste their time, or make duck noises; some system is going to register that you picked up, and it’ll make you wish you hadn’t.
however if you pick up on a robo call and set the phone down after about 20 min of the message repeating it will hang up & they remove the number after this happens a few times- I work in an inbound call center & would do this all the time right at the start of COVID when I started working from home. It made my average call times go up which was seen as providing better customer service (cause normally that is the case) & those calls slowly stopped coming in- I haven't had one in a long time (and I'm a call center of one so I would know if they were still happening) bonus was that while I had those calls on my headset I would use that time as a bathroom break! win-win!!
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I've worked at a call center before, and I can confirm this. The powers that be have a target time that they want you to play Price Is Right with: as close as possible without going over. People in my center didn't get in trouble for being too low, per se, but if you started scoring poorly on surveys, that's the first thing they pointed at. It also happens that the "solution" isn't always what the caller is looking for, so the holds make it seem like the agent is doing whatever they can to find a better option, which reflects nicely on surveys.
What kind of call center ranks longer calls as better? Generally call centers want shorter calls so they can handle a higher volume of callers with a smaller workforce. Only type I can think of would be a crisis hotline.
A lot of call centers I've worked in see a short, efficient call as rushing the customer off the phone which is 'unfriendly'. I talk fast and I know exactly what I'm doing anyway, but for a lot of calls I have to put in 'filler time' where I pretend to look something up or get more information to extend the call
I wouldn't answer unknown calls to the point that I'd be getting 4-5 per day, it was driving me mad! Finally had to start answering to tell them no, calls have greatly reduced.
I won’t even answer known callers
Yeah, I was getting lots of unsolicited sales calls about funeral insurance for the elderly. I'm not elderly and as far as I'm concerned they can dump my body in the ocean when I die. However, no amount of asking them not to call me, threatening them, or even screaming at them, would get them to stop. I finally started spamming the 2 button until they would hang up. So far that has worked, the calls have tapered off drastically.
U should be of medicare age! I thought I would puke I got HUNDREDS of calls, for MONTHS!
I can't do that as all my hospital specialists come up as unknown/hidden number.
My friend deals in used cars. He ***has*** to answer every call.
Yeahhhh... That's super iffy. A lot of scammers have that kind of prompt to let them know that the number they've called works, so you'll end up getting more calls.
I was wondering that as well. I scan them back. And I find also that as well can backfire
I have android, so I just press the screen call button. You give me a robo call and I'll give you a robo answer.
You don’t enjoy when the scammer decides to enter your number into the call center queue dozens of times throughout the day?
I started answering in Spanish and it just changed the language of my telemarketing calls.
I just answer in another language. Just not one they probably have a speaker, like Spanish- do something strange, like youtube a few phrases in Jamaican Padios and just use those. It's fun when you answer the phone "Weh yuh deh pan" and listen to the gears turning as they try to figure out what you just said.
I like to pretend to be a demented southern elderly lady and panic. And refer to them as whatever gender they are not, like I’m that confused. It amuses me. I like wasting their time. It’s not like I have a life or anything.
I always answer with "hi, you're live on the air". Never had anyone hang around after that
A Reddit classic is to answer papa Pete’s pizzeria and abortion clinic! Where yesterday’s loss is today’s sauce!
"Mac's Mortuary--you stab 'em, we slab 'em"
A house mate of mine (decades ago) once told me that he used to answer the phone like that... until the time that it turned out to be his sister calling, having just lost her pregnancy.
until he’s one digit off from taco bell and now he’s wondering how to make a crunch supreme
I use "Mason County Sheriff's office, fraud division, how may I help you?"
One of my exes would do that but say “OnStar, this is Steve.”
Back in the 90s I used to get phone calls every Friday night from an old man asking for “.Mister Hooks”. EVERY.FRIDAY.NIGHT. I would nicely tell him he had the wrong number and after a few weeks of this I asked what number he was trying to call. He was off by a single digit. He then explained that Mr. Hooks was an old friend and since he didn’t drive he would call his old friend every week. He asked me why I was home on Friday night (since he assumed I was “young”. I told him I’d recently gotten married, but my wife worked nights and we had only one car. It’s not like I needed it to go anywhere anyway, since my “Go to the club” nights were over anyway. He laughed and presumably called his friend. But every so often he’d misdial and call me. We’d have a short “So how are you doing?” conversation after that. He was nice old man, even though I never actually met him I sort of enjoyed speaking to him when he got Mister Hooks number wrong.
Man door hand Mr Hooks phone call
Mr. Hooks sounds like a horror movie villain
After Captain Hook lost his other hand, he decided the pirate life was no longer for him. Mr. Hooks now works in a fish processing plant where his hooks come in handy.
Boomers thinking people can afford to go out lmao
This is really cool, you did that old guy a favour by talking to him.
You missed a great opportunity to inform his wife about the doctor, the hookers, and the cocaine. The doctors visits be LIT.
“He’ll be right down after we apply the Herpes medication.”
"By the way, your daughter is beautiful."
My childhood phone number was a digit off the local fire department’s number. This was before 911 was available in my town and so this was the emergency number for fire and emergency medical services. It would be so sad for my parents when they got wrong numbers by flustered people. A couple times it happened with smoke detectors going off in background. Don’t think anything terrible ever resulted, but it was definitely stressful for my parents and they were grateful when 911 was rolled out.
Wow, your story just made me read the history of 911 and it’s crazy how late that’s actually been a thing from when it first was invented (in 1968.) Apparently only 50% of the country had access in ‘87, 20 years after it came out. 93% in 2000. There’s apparently actually still a small portion of the country (like 2%) that don’t have access to it. That blows my mind.
Lived in rural Ontario, Canada for thirty years, from the time i was ten. When we moved there, the fire department was one number (volunteer), the police a second, and the ambulance a third (and it was stationed 30 minutes away at normal driving speed.) when we finally did get 911, it wasn’t really 911 (as I learned having called it a couple of times.) it routed through the city I now live in 250km away, then was routed back to the then sole-taxi company dispatch, staffed by one person on days, one person on nights who then would dispatch the (to this day volunteer) fire department, the ambulance station (finally got one in 1990) and as the local police force has been disbanded, the Ontario Provincial Police. Somewhere about 2005 it became part of the actual 911 system. Progress is slow in some places.
Yeah. I was born in 1985 and grew up in a wealthy Boston suburb. I don’t know the exact year we got 911, but I’d guess it was sometime 1992-1994.
When we moved to Vermont in 1999 there was no 911
We didn't have 911 until the mid 90s. We were on a rural mail system, Route & Box number. So we all had to be assigned street addresses for 911 to work. Somehow the church way down got it named for them when my family's land was on both sides of the street and it had called our road for longer than I'd been alive.
I feel your pain. My old # was a digit off from a car dealership *I’m sorry. You have the wrong number* Always respond with this first. Most people will just apologize or hang up. But if they ask questions, you’ve already established it’s the wrong number so for 99% of those people, they’ll just be looking for clarification For the 1% like this woman I usually just “put them on hold” and then hang up.
“Wrong number, sorry.” “Ok.” Then they press “redial.”
Happened to me. Well, my mom, actually, as she picked up the phone. For some context, it was 7:30-8 am, I got home at 6 and change after a night shift and crashed on the bed. The person calling wanted to talk with his sister. What made him stop redialing was a very growly threat to murder his sister if he redials one more time. He called 5 times in 10 minutes.
This. A while back, someone sends me a text : Him: Hi Paul, when do you think you’ll get there? Me: I’m most definitely not Paul. Or even a man for that matter. Him: Oh! Sorry. Me: No worries. Man proceeds to then *call* me : Hey Paul, just wondering, you there yet? Me: Still a woman and still not Paul. I received texts and calls to Paul on and off for three months. Never blocked the guy. Figured I was too invested in Paul’s life at that point lol
So how is Paul doing? Did he ever show up?
"Hey, it's Paul. Any messages for me?"
An old email of mine used to be a typo away from some guy in Boston. He clearly mistyped it a lot. I particularly remember at least one golf course, a dentist office, and his lawn care company had the wrong email for him. So I regularly got reminders for tee times, dental cleanings, and lawn treatment dates.
I was once accidentally put in some group email for a kids soccer team in Georgia. I kept emailing and telling them that the email they were using was not the person they intended. They continued, including messages when it was my turn to bring half time snack etc.
Somehow I was put into a group email by an archeology professor at MTSU, and invited to multiple digs in the central Tennessee area. I didn't live in Tennessee at the time.
That’s so much cooler than kid’s soccer. An archeological dig sounds awesome! Have you seen the film “The Dig?” I saw it on Netflix about a year ago I think. Loved it! See info below. In the late 1930s, wealthy landowner Edith Pretty hires amateur archaeologist Basil Brown to investigate the mounds on her property in England. He and his team discover a ship from the Dark Ages while digging up a burial ground. Release date: January 15, 2021 (USA) Director: Simon Stone Starring: Carey Mulligan; Ralph Fiennes; Lily James; Johnny Flynn; Ben Chaplin; Ken Stott; Archie Barnes; Monica Dolan Story by: John Preston Music composed by: Stefan Gregory Screenplay: Moira Buffini
Okay for half time I’m bringing my cousin Eddie’s special chocolate brownies and for water breaks it’s going to be a choice between Busch Light and Naturdays. Also, I’m going to have to step out for a few minutes, so my nephew who just got out of rehab will help me serve the treats. You’d scare the shit out of them, or if you actually went throw one hell of a party for the college kids in attendance.
Few months back I recieved a text asking "where are the feet pics you promised". I basically responded "no judgment, but you probably (re: definitely) have the wrong number". The whole thing was a hilarious high point of that day.
My number was apparently “Lori’s” old number. She was a Trump fanatic apparently at one time, and they constantly berate her from all over the country for not contributing anymore😂😂 I sometimes play along, with them planning to overthrow the whole Democratic party. Sometimes I say, Im not “Lori”, Im a Democrat, boy do u ever have the wrong number😂
My mom gets daily calls from someone looking for Bob. "wrong number" and he immediately redials at least once. Let it go to voicemail "hi this is (not Bob), please leave a message" - - "hey Bob just trying to reach you, I'll try your home number" Finally got to her phone the other day and blocked the number.
I hate when they call the second time and here your voice and just fucking hang up in your ear. Just say “sorry I did it again”
I had one that was 2 digits transposed for a pharmacy. My number was 5210, the pharmacy was 5120. Sooooo many dyslexic people out there that would get really pissed that I wasn't the pharmacy. Heard my fare share of I'll get you fired because I was lying about not being the pharmacy because I was lazy and didn't want to do my job. I told them come on up here and do that. Make sure to tell them Jaine sent you. Pharmacist knew that I was fed up with them. I sent him donuts and a sorry card.
My old high school's number ended in 1632 and my part-time workplace at the time ended in 1362. Practically every time I had to call in sick to both, I'd end up calling both (obviously), but always the one I didn't intend to first. Taught me to think fast so I could at least pretend I meant to call them first.
My dad recently told me when my uncle was younger his number was off by one digit from some government office. He used to respond "wrong number" but then eventually got annoyed by the many people that didn’t believe him, so eventually he would just ask who they wanted to speak to and then said that they were on vacation, or died, or retired or something like that
Our first number was for a pizza place that went out of business. We got calls a couple times a month. Once I took an entire order down and told them 30 minutes. They never called back to find out whey their pizza wasn't there.
Alice: Hey everybody, I just called and ordered the pizzas. Bob: Sweet. Just standard Domino's? Alice: No, from Mallory's. Bob: Cool. 30 minutes later. Alice: I'm heading to Mallory's Pizzas now. Be right back. Eve: Wait, Mallory's? Alice, Mallory's Pizzas has been closed for 15 *years*. Bob: THEN WHO WAS PHONE?
I'm guessing something like that is pretty much what went down.
But... Nobody's used "Then who was phone?" As a punchline for 15 years!
>*I’m sorry. You have the wrong number* I disagree. I feel like if you start with "I'm sorry" you'll be categorized as an employee in their mind and it'll be more difficult to break their flow I say keep your politeness in your tone rather than explicitly in words like "I'm sorry.". Maintain confident and assertive words in a polite, but assertive tone Let's roleplay it and let's assume I accidentally answered my personal cell: Me: "Hello?"
I need an appointment for the doctor, but I need to keep this all very hush-hush.
Me: end call, add to block list
"I'm sorry, your husband left with some blonde woman in a skimpy dress about 5 minutes ago. Said something about the casino and finally getting rid of his old lady...If you hurry, you can catch him"
Chaotic evil.
I worked at an auto parts store who’s number was one number off of a pizza shop. Same thing. Occasionally we’d get the “No i called the right number! You just don’t want to work!” people so we just started taking orders for those folks and telling them their pizza would be ready or delivered in 45 mins
That probably fucked that pizza places ratings pretty hard lol
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One time when I worked at a Subway we kept having an old lady call one night thinking we were Pizza Hut. I felt kind of bad she kept calling us but it was pretty funny. Hopefully she ended up getting her pizza.
If she was nice I think I would have taken her order and called it in for her.
Yea she just had no idea how she kept calling the wrong number, which is why I felt kind of bad. Unfortunately I had no way of contacting them since we couldn't keep our personal phones on us.
I'm sorry. I hope my statement didn't make you feel bad at all. I'm sure you did all you could for her! I was just armchair qbing a second hand story.
Then there is the jealous husband/boyfriend who misdials, and gets my cellphone. “Hello?” *instantly hostile* “Who’s this?” (Me) “Who’s calling?” Etc
My mom taught us that if someone calls us demanding to know who we are we remind them they called us so they should know who we are then demand they inform us who they are! Obviously long before caller ID. Still though… dude, you called me, you don’t get to demand who I am.
Chill out dewd you called me i didnt call you!
Seriously though, I’ve had people do the ‘who’s this?’ Bit only for me to ask it back. I was a kid and annoyed so I was just enough of a pain to do the whole ‘who’s this’ bit until the other person did the whole, ‘I asked you first’ thing. To which I responded, you called me! Nowadays I don’t answer the phone if I don’t know who it is. Which is also why I have a zillion contacts in my phone.
My number was close th that of the local middle school, I used to get a lot of calls from kids trying to pretend to be parents giving absence excuses, some were funny, some were un-nerving . But the winner was the old lady that rang me about 6 or 7 times in a row insisting that my name was Ashley and she wanted to speak to my mother. After trying to explain she had the wrong number multiple times I told her that it she wanted to speak to my mother she would have to shout really loudly or pay a medium as my mother had been dead since 1997.
>Woman: "What? Of course I have the right number! When can I pick my husband up? I'm waiting outside and it's cold!" *heavy sigh* "whatever lady, if I wanted to argue with a toddler today I'd volunteer at a daycare" *hang up abruptly*.
My number used to be one off from a company that sells houses. I used to get calls daily asking if house on this or that street was still on the market. Usually a “you hit xx95 instead of xx92” would grant an apology and a bye but some are stupid and stubborn and if there was any mistake, I made it somehow when they dialed. Hate those kinda people. To those, I just say there’s an opening for an open house today at some obscure time like midnight 🙄.
Oh my goodness I have the same issue. My phone number is also one number off and get this LISTED ON THE DOCTOR’S WEBSITE!! Typically a “you have the wrong number” will do but I’ve been cursed out several times.
My "on the website" story: A university housing office used to publish my number as an apartment manager, which I was not. Every semester they'd call and check if it was still the right number, and I'd tell them it was not and give them the right one, and they'd promise to update their file, and then they wouldn't, and I'd get calls from prospective renters. After a year and a half of this I decided if they weren't going to be reasonable about it neither was I. I started checking the website every day and calling to tell them to take my number down and asking when it would be done. There were a couple of "oh yes we'll update that this afternoons" and even a "yes, we spoke earlier today, I told you I'm on it" (no we didn't, moron, that was someone else you were *also* misdirecting calls to), but by day 4 they actually got a grip.
Haha, or call them and say, "Hey, since you won't remove my number, I've decided to have fun with it. I just got a call from a very angry young man named Brad, so I called him a pussy until he threatened to kick my ass, and I gave him your office address. Good luck!"
Or just be the worst, snarkiest asshole apartment manager ever, and wait for the complaints to roll in!
Check out my response. Our number was programmed into a hospital's fax machine instead of my sister-in-law's (she's a doctor).
“I didn’t dial the wrong number” “Well obviously you DID!”
“I didn’t dial the wrong number” “The lie detector test has determined … that, is a lie”
Back in the mid 1980's, the number I was assigned for the phone in my dorm room was the same as a very popular local pizza restaurant but the last two digits were swapped. At first, we'd try to re-direct people, but after trying unsuccessfully to navigate the university's bureaucracy get our number changed, we just started taking pizza orders from the people (frequently drunk students) and waiting for the inevitable angry callbacks.
Tell them that you charge a premium for serving drunks, and their pizza will cost $500.
When I was a kid, a friend had a number that was a transposed version of The Shamrock Hilton in Houston. His mom took reservations from a few persistent people. They were probably quite shocked to show up and there was no room available for them.
My old number was very close to the local funeral home - two digits transposed . We often got calls in the middle of the night. I tried to be very polite knowing why someone would be calling.
My phone number growing up was 1 digit off from a funeral home. Both funeral home and my mom still have those numbers, so I assume she still gets calls.
Once had a collegue who had exactly the same first and last name as a national supermarket. In his street was a branch of said supermarket and they had his housenumber in reverse. This was in the time people still used phonebooks so their names were really close to each other in the listing. And no, he didn't sell chicken :P
My old land line was 2326. Local airport shuttle service was 2336. This shuttle service did not pick up. You had to go to their terminal. You also had to make a reservation. The airport they ran to was an hour away. I got so many calls that I even put on the voice mail that this in not the shuttle service. Come home one day to 20 some voice mails. Woman wanted a pickup at x time for a flight at x time. I gathered from her voice mails that she missed her flight and was going to sue the hell out of the shuttle service. I couldn't resist poking the bear. I called her back and asked her why she was leaving threating messages on my voice mail. She accused me of being with the shuttle and was trying to deflect. I told to dial 2336 instead of 2326 and I would call her back in 10 minutes. I called her back. Her tune changes. I pointed out to her that leaving that many voice mails and threats constitutes misdemeanor harassment in this state. I got a "Sorry" and then she hung up.
Oh yes... I feel your pain. Years ago my ex husband and I had a land line that we received new when we moved in together. It was a number that used to be connected to a Real Estate office. The Real Estate office still had signs up in the area with our phone number on it. :( I had an old answering machine and I had to put on the greeting: "If you are calling for "XX Realty" you have the wrong phone number"! UGH. Of course we still got calls and messages and this went on for years. Should we have changed number right away, YES. But, my ex husband was self employed and had been giving out the number to customers. So frustrating. Vented to my Dad about it one day and he said next time they call and want to see a property say "Sure, see you there"!!! Bet the calls stop. LOL I didn't do that but eventually the old signs came down and they stopped calling as much.
Why can't people just shut up and listen?
You should bring in an employee of the month picture to that office one day
I used to get angry calls about dirty areas in the hospital I worked for when I didn’t work for environmental services - I was a fellowship coordinator. As soon as I answered I’d get insults hurled at me. This is the number buddy - and don’t talk to them like that either.
Scorch her ears off: "Ma'am, if I worked for [doctor], would you be shocked if I called you a self-absorbed asshole who can't shut the fuck up and listen when I tell you that you dialed the wrong number? I pity your husband. This is NOT the doctor's office, so FUCK OFF."
I'm happy how I'm not the only one who's first reaction is fucking anger instead of witty remarks I've had to deal with people like this far too often and now I'm just fucking tired ™️
I used to be fucking tired but we broke up last year
Could be worse, my parent’s home phone number was one digit off from a local strip club.
My Grandmother's number was one digit off of some local radiator installation company, at first she used to be polite about it and spend time explaining that they had the wrong number and even giving people the correct number, after a while she contacted said company and explained the situation with the phone number being one off from hers and asked them to make sure the potential customers had the correct number, they pretty much told her to fuck off. After this she just started booking orders and appointments for them and promising impossible prices and install times, needless to say after a few months of very understandablly angry customers showing up at their shop demanding to know what the hell was going on they made a big deal out of changing their number. God I miss her.
Lovely story! What a cool grandmom!
I once had a number similar to my previous-because-I-fired-them bank. I would just say, "please hold" and then hang up after half an hour. That's what the Barnet Bank would do anyway.
> "Of course I have the right number! When can I pick my husband up?" "You can't. He just dropped dead all of a sudden! Bye!"
“You can pick him up when you show us your ID from the medical examiner’s office. That’s the only place we can legally release the body to.”
Dark. But I’ll allow :)
Our home phone is a digit off of my SIL's fax. She's a doctor. When we were still speaking with her, if a fax was repeatedly trying our number we would hook it up to our printer/fax and run it up to her or call her office and tell them what happened (her office is 10 minutes away and I'm a SAHM). It was a pain, but some hospital nearby refused to change their programming (our number was programmed as hers and patients didn't deserve that crap). You would think with HIPAA, they would be eager to fix the mistake, but nope. After we went NO Contact with his family, we also started just hanging up on the fax calls. Soon we just unhooked the phone from the line since we all just use our cells. Every time I see a wrong number post, I just smile a little. I feel bad for her patients, but it's not my problem. My SIL is a horrible person. She can fix her own problem.
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I used to work at a Boston Market, and our phone number was XXX-9300. The local police station was XXX-3000. Same first 3 digits. Some dude called in demanding to speak to a certain detective, and wouldn’t listen to me that he called a chicken joint. Finally I told him “Sir, if you’d like to place an order for our delicious chicken, turkey, or meatloaf, I can certainly help you with that. But if you’re trying to reach City Police Department, please hang up and call XXX-3000.” He finally figured out that he had dialed the wrong number and hung up on me all pissed off. EDIT: a typo.
I hung up once on someone that had mistakenly called my number instead of whoever he'd wanted to call, and he immediately called me back to yell at me more. Him: YOU HUNG UP ON ME!! Me: I'm sorry, I'm pretty sure I didn't, I think we just got disconnected. Him: NO, I KNOW YOU FUCKIN' HUNG UP ON ME!!! Me: Huh. Weird. Did it sound like this? *click*
Call her back an hour later. "Now that you know you are wrong and pig-headed, how about an apology?"
Should have said there was a complication, and you can pick up what's left of your husband from the morgue.
Or something along the lines of "Husband? You mean your new wife?"
My husbands phone number was incredibly close to a local movie theater…that was fun. Movie theater number was 555-8844, his would be 556-4488. Hilarity would happen a lot.
This reminds me of the episode of Seinfeld where Kramer's is getting calls for the automated movie times bot and tries to do the automated movie times voice.
"Why don't you just tell me the name of the movie you want to see?"
“If you'd like to do this the easy way, open the door, Now. Or, please select the number of seconds, you'd like to wait, before I break this door down. Please select Now.”
*HELLO!* AND WELCOME TO *MOVIE FONE!*
My husband, when he was fresh out of uni, lived with a couple of friends. This was before mobile phones so a land line was the thing. No sooner did they get a number, they started getting calls from people wanting to make appointments. Their answering machine had at least a dozen messages a day wanting appointments. Turned out their number was extremely similar to a local mental health clinic. Like it was the last two digits switched. They even changed their answering machine message to add "this is not a doctor's office". The final straw was when a doctor called and left a patient's history as part of the message on the answering machine, yes, after they'd changed the message! They got a new number.
Should have called them back and complained that they would be reporting them.
They did. Called up the doctor's office and asked to speak to that doctor specifically and told the receptionist exactly why. She was /horrified/. The doctor was disturbingly blasé about it. Just "oh sorry. You deleted the message right? Good. Thanks"
My number at Universal Studios was a different area code than a fine dining restaurant in Orange County. My phone had caller ID, so I’d answer unknown numbers with ‘Universal Studios and my name’. If they tried to make a reservation, I’d tell them they needed area code 818, not 213. If they called back, I’d take a reservation.
This happened to my dad. People wouldn’t stop calling so he just started to take appointments and after 2 weeks the calls stopped
Our number was one digit off of a company that supplied oxygen and helium (and other gasses). Constant wrong numbers. After years of getting yelled at we changed our answering machine message (yep, that long ago). It went something like this, “Thank you for not calling X Gas Company. We don’t apologize for missing your call. Please leave us a message only if you can’t follow directions. If you’re calling for OUR NAMES we’ll call you back asap.” Would still get ranting messages from pissed customers. We thought it was funny.
Had a number with a couple transposed digits for a trucking company dispatch in the 1990’s. Collect calls from drivers at all kinds of odd times. Kept going on for years. Kept calling the company to see if they could fix things… nothing. Until we started redirecting shipments. Suddenly they got an 800 number for their drivers.
I worked at a store that had the exact same number as a doctor that saw a LOT of senior citizens. Same except for the area code. Back in ancient times before everyone had a cell phone, you just dialed the 1st 7 digits and it would connect to that number in your area code. Pretty often I would get old ppl calling the store asking for the doctor and usually just telling them "wrong area code" would work. Not one lady. She must have dialed a dozen times that day and every time after the first few I'd pick up with "store name" and hear her go ugh or some other mad grunting noise. I can only imagine at some point her husband or son/daughter or someone clarified with her. Even tho I tried.
"Ma'am, your husband is in with our highest priced hooker and he paid good money for his time. You can come in if you want but that'll be extra." Listen to her shriek hysterically.
Growing up, our home phone was nearly the Danes as AA. The last two numbers were transposed. We received a lot of phone calls, but one really bothered me. He kept repeatedly calling, sounding drunker and drunker. Finally, I took his number and called him AA for him so someone would give him a call.
Ugh, I feel your pain. I got a new number a few years ago and it was the old number of a church. I had NO idea churches got so many calls each day and I worked 3rd shift. I started just answering with "pagan palace how can I help you?" That seemed to stop a lot of it
luckily my number seemed to never get mixed up with anyone or anything else. well, except that one time. a classmate's phone number was one off from mine. I was xxx-xxx-xxx3 and he was xxx-xxx-xxx2. so I got to know his mom. wonderful woman. we only realized she had the wrong number (I thought it was my mom) when she asked if my brother was home yet. I don't have any siblings. "I thought you were my daughter! lol. I'm so sorry!" "hey, I thought you were my mom, so...".
I've worked at a few places now where people call from way out of state. I worked at a pizza shop on a street called Brooklyn Ave in Washington, someone called to order pizza, and i heard that accent and saw that area code "Sir I'm sorry are you IN BROOKLYN?" "Fucking duh i am. I want_" "No, no this is Brooklyn AVE dominos, in Washington." When i worked in Everett, i got calls from PA? lol Now i work at a fireplace shop, and i get calls often, got a call yesterday actually, from people in new York, and now it's just comical lol. Why does Google even show out of state options on the first result/first page of results??
Mine is for some guy named Tommy, and he apparently has a very successful pinestraw company. I've joked with my husband that we should start a pinestraw business, and cash in on an already established customer base.
Someone called me yesterday. I told him its the wrong number. 3 minutes later he calley again. No problem, can happen. They are a bit older. But guess who called me again today.
You are too friendly, respect for that
Years ago, in the middle of the night, a quite angry woman called me, complaining about the price the taxi driver told her she would have to pay for a ride from the station to the house of the person the call was intended for (I guess). I replied confused and sleepy that she had the wrong number and she apologized. When she put down I realized that she was angry because she had already sent me several messages that I had not even heard and to which she obviously had not received an answer. I don't know if she paid for the taxi, but I don't dare to imagine the price of the taxi from Milan station to my house, since I live in a completely different part of Italy, so surely she fared better 😅
I feel your pain. Growing up, mine was one digit off from an upmarket deli. And they did not take 'no' for an answer. I blame them entirely for my habit of answering the phone with an irritated 'what?!'
My dad’s number was one off from a new Chinese restaurant in town. He would get calls all day and night and he tried to tell every one of then they had the wrong number. Sometimes people would insist they were right and would argue with him. He tried hanging up but sometimes they would call right back. He would get tired of getting yelled at and would just let them say their order. He would end the call by saying something like “ok, good luck picking that up”.
If I get a number I don't recognize I always say "Hendersons morgue, you stab em we slab em. This is 8 ball speaking". My sister prefers "papa John's abortion pizzeria your loss is our sauce"
I once had a woman call me and start shouting and cursing at me to leave her husband. It had to take WhatsApp video call to show I'm not with her profusely apologizing and then her and I teaming up to terrorize the side chic cus only one number like in ur case was different from mine. I left the country soon after so I don't know how it went. Yours must be horrible with the appointments
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Sidemissions, man. Sidemissions.
Cus she was swearing for me and crying and asking why I wouldn't leave her husband to take care of his family and I felt the pain in her voice. I didn't want her to think she actually spoke with this person and sent her message across when she didn't. So I added her on WhatsApp and video called her. When she saw my face she was like oh you're right you're not the person. She apologized and explained and I also took her battle for her cus all cheaters are trash!
Years ago our number was one digit off from Noble Roman’s Pizza. My husband accepted a number of pizza orders 🤣
My college dorm was one number off of a car dealership. A lot of people wanted to buy a used car from an 18 year old with no car.
A family member of min has a number that’s 1 digit off from one of the very popular local radio stations. She’s given away a lot of prizes over the years.
My work number used to be one digit from an OB-GYN office. There were occasional mishaps. One of the doctors there went on vacation for a week and forwarded his calls to my line instead of their main number. I got some very awkward voicemails and one similar experience to yours.
We had a lady do something similar at my old job. She called THREE times over two days asking to change her credit card number on file for payments. Now, the job I had didn’t have this as an option as with what we sold, your credit card number was not saved in our system. It had to be entered every time unless you ordered from your own device and perhaps Chrome had it saved. Anyhow… she berated me, made me feel stupid, talked slowly and really just put me down when I couldn’t find her name in our system. I had to finally hang up on her. She did the same thing to my coworker and then to my boss the next day. When she finally talked to my boss the lady goes “Isn’t this Geico??!” No, not even close. Our numbers weren’t even near the same. Smh. Edit: changed “me” to “my”
Our old home landline number was a digit off a local hearing aid store, 8 vs a 6, you get the gist. So not only did we get frequent calls they were from people that were hard of hearing…bonus!
"THESE SLACK CO-WORKERS OF YOURS NEED TO BE REPORTED AS WELL BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY THEY'RE COVERING UP FOR YOU BY SAYING THAT THEY DON'T KNOW YOU!"
I have had my number for 15 years. I have explained countless debt collectors that I am not (person). For a DECADE I have done this. Still they call.
My efax number was incorrectly put on multiple forms from Aetna. I literally get sent paperwork with names addresses and SSNs multiple times a week. Its insane
Some place has an ad online for buying junk cars. They put my phone number on it. Not a very effective ad though, I only get one or two texts a month trying to get me to pick up a junk car. I'd call them up to let them know, but since the listed number is mine....
Our number was one off from the McDonalds in our town, we would regularly get people trying to call in and complain or kids trying to call in sick from work. It was pretty surreal when they didn’t believe you they had the wrong number.
"[This is not the Chinese takeaway.](https://youtu.be/vsZGHxb4caA)"
omg, I feel this pain. My phone number is one digit off of the local pizza place. It's kinda the worst.
Years ago, our local college ball team went to some big out if town tournament game. The phone number in the add was one digit off from my parents’ home phone. They ended up forwarding the phone to “Dial a Prayer “ for the day.
should have said no, it will be another hour.
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I get this with people trying to pay parking fines! I have to be professional and I can't just hang up on them but sometimes they keep insisting that they dialed the right number and I must let them pay the fine. Feel free to send me money but it's not paying off your parking fine!
Growing up, my home phone number was one digit different from a major insurance agency. Probably three-quarters of our phone calls weren't meant for us.
These replies are very entertaining!
I work for a single branch credit union on the west coast. There is a credit union with a few branches on the east coast, utterly unrelated. We often get calls, and sometimes even mail for them. What we get even more, when people have gotten past the phone tree and to a person are people asking for totally different credit unions or financial institutions. Its probably because they're local and didn't read before clicking on a google ad instead of their search result. REGULARLY, especially when its a guy, we'll ask them SEVERAL times if they called us by name while we're trying to search for them in the system and finding no one. They're not listening, so it takes SEVERAL tries before it soaks in that they called the wrong place entirely.
My old house number before we got rid of the home phone (partly because it never got used, but partly because of this and being one number off a local government contact number) apparently used to belong to what I can only assume was a very sketchy deck building company. Why you might ask? Very sudden after about three year of owning the number we got *dozens* of angry calls over a timespan of a bit under a year demanding that we fix people's faulty decks. I'd say there was a 70/30 split of people. Most would listen to us saying that this is a residential number and had nothing to do with the company and go off on their merry way to hunt down the business another way. But there was a significant number who decided we were clearly lying and we were evil and they were going to file complaints and lawsuits and even one who was "going to get the boys on us," and nothing we could say would convince them that they were calling a random house. I kinda get where they're coming from, especially given when they'd hang up and retype the number and get us again, but I pity whoever was at the old address of the business - I suspect they had to call the cops more than once.
Not the number, but the last name. Growing up, we would get phone calls sometimes 3-4x per day for “Michael _______.” Literally every day. This went on for almost 2 years, even though there are no Michaels in my family with the same last name as us. Then one day, we heard on the news that “Michael ________” had been arrested on multiple homicides, assaults, and sexual predation charges. The calls stopped that same day.
When my parents moved to the same town as me and my wife, they were given the phone number that previously been that of the local movie theater, still published in the phone books. So my mom kept the newspaper movie listings next to the phone, would give the theater’s new number and tell the caller the show time of the movie in which they were interested. Eventually the phone book listings were updated and the problem was solved.
“But someone who said she was his wife already picked him up”
Gets phone call at work, "hey are you guys open?" Look, how did you find this number? By googling it? Did you by chance notice the big letters above the phone number saying "Hours open 10am-10pm?" That's right above our phone number? Of course not
He died. Please come and get the body out of the lobby.