Attack of the wrong-number dialer!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

I’ve always wondered about the etiquette of this - I once had a number jotted down wrong, and when I first got what was obviously the wrong answering machine, I assumed I had misdialed and hung up. Double-checked what I had written down, tried again, got the same wrong machine, realized I had it written down wrong and hung up again.

When I got home from work, there was a snotty message on my machine that came from the wrong number saying, “My caller ID has 2 calls from you and I don’t know who you are. The next time you call me, you better leave a message.”

22

Heh.

My name is Doug. My number is 1 number off from a local firewood guy. His name is also Doug. I used to get wood from the firewood guy named Doug. I get messages for Doug. They call and think they’ve reached Doug of Firewood, and leave a message on Doug of GIS on my phone. No, I can’t get you a cord of wood this weekend. I call them back and give them the right number.

Also, our number is listed just below the only bar in ‘town’.

Trust me, your husband is not here. And I’m not running any specials, and I have no intention of having a band play here tonight. :snerk:

Small towns are kinda fun that way.

23

I don’t have any really interesting wrong number stories. Mine are all fairly standard.

One thing that really gets me, though, is when i answer the phone and the caller asks me “Who is this?”

Sorry, fucker, you called me. I don’t just give my name out to random strangers on the telephone. You tell me who you are and why you’re calling, and then you might get some reciprocation.

24

This, in my opinion, is one of the downsides of caller ID.

All it takes nowdays is to accidentally dial a wrong number like you did, and some fucking moron checks their caller ID and feels somehow entitled to call you back and abuse or interrogate you.

We don’t have a caller ID-enabled phone, and we’re quite happy with that. Since the Do Not Call list was introduced, we get virtually no telemarketing calls, and if the phone rings and we don’t feel like answering, we will just let the answering machine pick it up.

25

:smiley:

Like Katriona, I have had people call and demand (loudly) to know why I called them because they found my number on their caller ID. Usually it is a day or so later and I don’t remember dialing the wrong number. Now I leave a message. It just seems polite.

mhendo, I hate it when people ask who I am, too. Unspeakably rude!

My phone number is similar to the county jail’s main number so we get some interesting calls, usually wanting to know if so-an-so is locked up and what is the bail?

Recently I meant to dial a friend’s cell phone but punched the wrong number on my speed dial and got my sister’s cell instead. She thought I was crazy when I told her I had misdialed and didn’t actually want to speak to her. A week or so later, my phone rings:

Me: Hello.
Sis: Cubster?
Me: Yes?
Sis: Why are you answering the phone at my house?
Me: You dialed my house by mistake. :smiley: :smiley:

26

Back in college, my roommate had an answering machien that had a sixty minute tape, voice activated – that is, as long as you kept talking, the tape was rolling.

One evening we were both out, and some semi-inebriated girl neither of us knew left a 26 minute message, sobbing about how she was so sorry about cheating and she would never do it again and swearing she would do anything to get back together. It was… disturbingly graphic in some areas.

27

About a year ago I got a phone call at about 11pm or so by an irate woman screaming that my cat was sitting on the fence that separates our back yards and wouldn’t stop doing that cat yell thing. She said she knew who I was and that I better go out and get the cat or else she was going to come over and cause me physical violence (she used many more four letter words than that, though). Her caller ID info was also blocked, so I couldn’t derive who this woman was.

There were several problems, all of which I tried to explain to the poor girl.

One, I don’t have a cat. A dog, yes, but she was sound asleep at the end of the bed, so I can be reasonably confident that my Lab wasn’t on a fence being mistaken for a cat.

Two, no one lives behind me. Or diagonally behind me. There are over a mile of woods behind my house, and then a lake. No fences there, either.

She also wouldn’t believe me that my name wasn’t the one she was saying (I don’t remember who it was). I strongly suggested she call the police and have them handle it, particularly since she was so angry. She said she was going to take me up on that offer. I couldn’t help but to think about poor soul who was going to be woken up by the police and this lunatic woman, and start laughing about her apparent call to him.

28

I’ve had some annoying kid-calls lately, but eventually they get set right. They never apologize for the wrong number, though…

The worst, though, was a series of calls we got on our answering machine about 15 years ago. Still makes me teary…

Our machine, at that point, just said something like “you have reached xxx-xxxx, please leave a message.” We got a message from a young woman one day that said, “This is Lauren*. I’m due any day now, and we need to sign the papers. Call me.” No phone number, no last name.

Next meassage, a few days later: “This is Lauren - I’m going into labor, so I’m heading to the hospital. Meet me there, OK?” Next message 5 hours later, crying - “where are you? I’m at the hospital - don’t you still want the baby?”

At that point, we got home and changed the message to something like “Lauren! you have the wrong number, and we can’t contact you!”

No more calls, and I still wonder what eventually happened.

(*not her real name)

29

I mentioned my wrong number calls from prison, but my FAVORITE all-time wrong number call(s) came soon after I’d moved into my new house, and thus, had a new number. You know how you often get wrong-number calls from people trying to contact the former owner of your number?

Well, here’s how my favorite one of those went:

:::ring:::

Me: Hello?
Sweet-sounding-old-lady: Hello, is Michelle there?
M: I’m sorry, there’s no one here by that name. You must have the wrong number.
SSOL: Oh, I’m sorry.
M: No problem, have a good evening.

:::pause:::

:::ring:::

M: Hello:
SSOL: Yes, is Michelle there?
M: No, I’m sorry, you’ve called the wrong number again. There is no Michelle here.
SSOL: Oh, well, I thought this was it…
M: Sorry, but it’s a wrong number.

:::pause:::

:::ring::::

M (knowing who it was by now): Hello?
SSOL: I’d like to speak with Michelle.
M (getting impatient, but it’s a SSOL so I don’t want to be a jerk): There is no Michelle here. You have the wrong number.
Sweet-sounding-old-lady, now turning into Cranky Get Off My Lawn Old Lady: Well, this is the number they gave me for Michelle, and it is what I’ve been dialing, so I’d like to speak to Michelle NOW please.
M: There is NO ONE HERE named Michelle! The only other person who lives here is my husband, and he decidedly NOT a Michelle; I promise, there is no Michelle here!
CGOMLOL: THIS IS THE NUMBER THEY GAVE ME! AND I DIALED IT CORRECTLY!
**M:**M: She’s not here!

After that call, CGOMLOL gave up and stopped calling. I don’t remember how many times she called exactly, but I know it was at least 3. I was just amused that she was PISSED to have the wrong number and was trying to tell me she had the right number–she seemed convinced I was keeping Michelle bound and gagged in my basement.

People are weird. And funny.

30

My folks just moved out of their old area code, and took their answering machine with them–without changing the message to reflect the new number. Something to keep in mind.

31

I once had a phone number that was one digit away from the number of the local transit system’s lost and found department. If I was at home when someone called asking about a piece of property they lost on the bus or subway, it was usually no problem to explain that they had the wrong number. In fact, since I got so many calls for the lost-and-found, I’d often give such a caller the right number. I even did this in my greeting on my answering machine.

But I say “usually,” because I had a few such callers who refused to believe that I wasn’t the lost-and-found, and insisted on leaving their information. Fair enough; I listened to a description of their lost property, listened as they gave their phone number, said “Yes, of course,” at the appropriate time, and after I hung up, promptly forgot it all. It sounds mean, but refusing to believe that you got the wrong number? :rolleyes: I wasn’t sure what else to do when they absolutely insisted I was wrong and started giving me information.

Anyway, the best wrong number call I ever received occurred because that same phone number was also one digit away (a different digit than the lost-and-found) from a strip club. So one day, my phone rang:

“Hi, this is Brandy, I’d like to audition to dance in your club…”

I paused before saying anything. I had to pause; it was so tempting to reply that yes we were auditioning dancers, but the auditions were not taking place in the club, but instead, were being held in a private home…

No, while it really was tempting, I did the right thing. I told Brandy that she had the wrong number. Oh well.

32

This is the best thing I have read on the dope this week.

33

This all reminds me of Kramer’s “Hewwo, and welcome to movie phone, brought to you by the New York Times and Hot 97…”

Back in the mid-90’s, a friend of mine named Chris spent nearly 10 minutes on the phone with Grandma before they realized that she wasn’t the Grandma he knew and he wasn’t the Chris she was looking for. He said it was extremely awkward after that.

34

I got two calls in a row from someone calling collect from Juvenile Detention, and would I accept the charges.

Of course, Ivygirl and Ivyboy were NEVER in JD, so I hung up, but I felt a bit sad, thinking some teenaged kid is trying to reach out for help and thinks that help is turning their back on them. :frowning:

35

Back in my freshman year of high school, I had an art history teacher we’ll call Steve Robbins. Parent-teacher conference time rolled around, and my parents (who would have missed a concert by God himself for a parent-teacher conference) surely came and asked to talk to their son’s teacher Steve (everyone, students included, referred to all the teachers as Steve, with a couple of self-selected exceptions).

Steve saw them in, sat them down, made the introductions, etc.; our school was very small and tight-knit, and everyone knew everyone eventually, but this being the first year of the school’s existence, some of the teachers hadn’t been introduced to the parents. So they sat down and talked about the class, and Steve told them he was having the students analyze circles and triangles. Seemed logical for an art history class, right? “By the way”, asked Steve, “What’s your son’s name?” The name they gave sounded totally unfamiliar to him. He looked through his gradebooks and couldn’t find me, and after a half hour of the parent-teacher conference suddenly it had dawned on him what had happened…

He was geometry teacher Steve Blunt.

36

I posted this to the wrong phone thread, so you might have read this.

Some guy left multiple messages over a couple months since spring. “Hello, I’ll have to meet you at the prison.” “Hello, I need you to meet me at the emergency room.” One message was personal medical information. He left messages several minutes long. He never identified himself or the person’s name he thought he was talking to. I would think not showing up at the prison or emergence room would have made them question what was going on.

Somebody moved into the same city as our family that had the same first and last name as my father. The man got divorced and ran around with many loose women. The many seedy women called our house at all hours of the day or night. My mother would get some bitch on the other end, asking for this person by nickname. The bar bitch s would immediately start in on “Who the Hell are you?” and “What are you doing at his house?”. She’d tell them that they had the wrong number and hang up. They would call back and still want a confrontation. The thing is the ass would sometimes give our number to these women and he was unlisted. He got his lay and didn’t want to talk with them again. He was always causing problems for our family, because his wife would pass bad checks. The name on the store’s bad checks list matched my father’s. We’d go in to shop and after tallying up the cart of groceries the new employees would loudly tell her she was on the list for passing bad checks, and call over the manager. I wish their was a clear law they could have used against him, it was a form of identity theft, when he gave out our information instead of his to maliciously.

The house phone was my father’s work number too.

37

Hoping that was a typo. Southern people are generally polite. Until we are angry enough to kill you…

38

I used to have a phone number that ended in 6, and the local bike shop had the same digits except the last one was zero. Now, to some people, especially kids, a “0” looks a lot like an “O” (letter O), especially in the days before all-digit dialing, and the letter O is actually the digit 6 on the dial. Of course, we often got kids calling asking if their bikes were ready. I got tired of saying no, so I often said yes, come on down. Especially if they ignored my instructions and called back again in error.

Where I live now, there are only two prefixes locally, the old one, 743 and the new, 746. People are always forgetting you can’t tell someone your number is “1234” anymore, because they might dial the wrong prefix.

39

Depends what you mean by polite, i guess.

Some people—and this doesn’t apply to all Southerners, nor is it exclusive to Southerners—act in a way that is superficially polite, and would seem polite if you saw their words in writing. These same people, however, manage to affect an attitude or a disposition that belies every word coming out of their mouth, and that is, in fact, anything but polite.

40

We only do that to yankees.