Too bad you don’t know which ones.
You could answer “City Animal Shelter, foodservice division, todays special ground poodle just $4.99/pound 27…no wait, 35 pounds available.”
I worked at a line where only other employees called. We never answered the phone the same twice.
My sons would like to order these phones for their brothers.
The wrong numbers are the reason that I don’t use our required spiel when answering the phone. People would either zone out during it and/or only hear Public Works and assume that includes Animal Control. Then I’d have to break into their explanation of what they wanted to tell them they needed to call another number. Few people were happy.
If I say “Engineering, this is Yllaria,” about 3/4 of them guess that they have the wrong number. That’s short. Then I can ask who they were trying to call and be the nice person who gives them the right number, quickly.
My thanks to all those posting with suggestions!
Yes, I have asked what number was being dialed…it was my own, including area code. In two cases it was a misdial, one or two digits off.
I do like the “sneaky questions act” and may try that out to see what it nets me. What I don’t want, though, is to piss someone off who already has my home phone number.
Ditto for the nasty loud whistle trick. It can backfire and with my luck, it would, just like it did for this person: http://www.thelocal.de/society/20120522-42685.html
Do you have caller ID? If so, what does it say about who’s calling you? If not, maybe you should get it.
Have you tried asking the phone company for help with this?
Yes, I do have caller ID and it usually clues me in on what to expect when I see an out of state area code and a name and number that are unfamiliar. People almost never call me twice once they learn that it is a wrong number.
My phone company said that I could change my phone number. Big help there. They basically washed their hands of it since the calls don’t originate with them and no criminal activity (like deliberate harassment) is involved.
This sounds like the main problem. Since they don’t call back again, sounds like you could live with having to answer the occasional call on this.
So it is real simple to wire in a switch to the phone wiring going into the room where the 83-year-old is sleeping, to disconnect the phone line into that room when they are sleeping. Just interrupt either the red or green wire (or both). Note that this will disconnect the whole phone line to that room, so if they wake up and try to use the bedside phone, it won’t work – that may be risky if they are ever home alone and need to use this phone in an emergency.
An alternative is just disconnecting the ringer on the phone in that room. For an older Western Electric desk phone, you could do that easily, or wire up a switch on the phone to do this when needed. But it may be easier to just replace the phone in that room with a new one that has an adjustable volume on the ringer – many of them allow you to turn the ringer off completely. Should not be hard to find one like that in an electronics/office supply store, and probably less than $20.
Well worth that investment to make sure an elderly relative gets their sleep!
My guess is that a large company misprinted a memo with your phone number on it. I know my company uses a language line service (it gets used intermittently by reps as needed, and could just as easily happen during day- or nighttime), and something like this could happen if one of our web developers transposed or mistyped a digit or 2. If you can ask the phone company for a new number, that might be the best solution.
Have you tried googling the numbers of the incoming calls? That might give you a clue as to where they’re getting your number.