This used to drive me crazy when I worked as a receptionist way back when. Especially when I was working for the Executive Offices/call-center for a dot.com business. I would get at least two or three calls a day like this:
Me: XYZ Company, how may I help you?
Them: Yeah, someone called me from this number?
Me: Okay, did they leave their name?
Them: No, there was no message, I just saw the number.
Me: Well, unfortunately there are about 200 people working here that the call could have come from. Maybe we can narrow it down. Have you done any business with XYZ Company lately?
Them: No.
Me: Can you think of any reason someone from XYZ Company would be calling you?
Them: No.
Me: I’m sorry, Sir/Ma’am, I don’t think I can help you since I don’t know exactly who called you. I’m sure if it’s important they will call you back.
And then they would either hang up on me or cuss me out.
I never understood that–you see that you’ve received a call from XYZ Company (yes, our name did display on Caller-ID, no, we weren’t a telemarketing company), but you haven’t bought anything from us, you don’t know anybody who works there, you’re not trying to sell us something. WHY would you call the number back? Don’t you think if it was important they’d either call back later or leave a message? Stop wasting my time!
A lot of my coworkers are in other states, often it’s the first time I’ve worked with them, and most of our working together is done sight unseen/long distance, so it’s not unusual if I see an unknown number. If they’re busy, they may not take the time to leave a message, or they may figure “oh, I’ll just send her an email instead”. So if I’m in the middle of a project, I’ll call back to make sure it wasn’t “Joe” calling about X problem and I just missed him because I was on another call, or didn’t hear the phone ring or something.
I’m in Spain, where voicemail is a very recent novelty and people aren’t used to it, plus often calls are “missed” on purpose: you’re busy, get a call, take it and hang up without saying anything, and that means “busy now, I’ll call you”.
Since I also happen to get a lot of calls from agents, I call back a lot of unknown numbers. One of my pet peeves is agents who call from a VoiP system (so, I don’t have a number I can call back), leave a voicemail but no number :smack: (or a completely slurred number, hlodisismaksmumblefromblueflag mind giving me a call back at ofourfourmumblemumblefive?) and don’t send an email. Dude, I’ll be happy to drop you a call - if you give me the info I need to do it!
I used to, when I first got my mobile phone but I found myself calling back unknown numbers, only to be abused by the person on the end - usually a teenage girl - for daring to call her number. “Who are you?! How did you get my number?! I didn’t call you, you *&%# cow!!”.
Slightly off topic, but this thread brings to mind the people who dial a wrong number, and when I pick up, demand to know who I am, as though I’d wronged them somehow. I’m not one to lose my temper easily at all, but when people do this, I don’t tend to treat them kindly. Who the fuck are YOU to be indignant?
Back on topic, I’ll only return a misplaced call if there’s been a voicemail that seems urgent or problematic if it isn’t received by the right person. I can only think of a couple of times in my life where that’s come up. Otherwise, I assume the caller will figure it out on their own.
Yeah well, how about those who dial the right number and answer “hello?” with “who are you?”?
I can understand the ones who call my mother’s phone and when I get it mistake me for her, but the people who call someone and when that person answers the phone say “who is this?” need more coffee. Or maybe they’re zombies and forgot to grab their brains before getting out of bed.
My husband would would occasionally call back to unknown numbers, but he’s gotten over that. I operate under the assumption that if it’s important, the caller will leave a message. Face it, it’s an imperfect world - people misdial all the time. I’ve even done it myself! :eek:
I hate when people call back numbers on their missed calls list. There’s a reason why I didn’t leave you a message, so no need to call me back.
Several years ago in grad school, I called a classmate to ask her a question about an assignment. When her answering machine picked up, I suddenly remembered her saying that she had a late evening class on Tuesdays (or whatever day that was). I realized that she wouldn’t be back home in time to answer my question, so I hung up and called someone else.
About an hour later, our phone rang. I was living with my parents at the time and my dad answered, and it was some guy we didn’t know, asking who we were and why we were calling him. When my dad told me about it afterwards, I figured it was my classmate’s husband. It got me wondering if this guy goes through his caller ID every time he gets home and makes indignant calls to all the numbers he doesn’t recognize.