Oh. I didn’t remember that this was in the pit and I could have said fuck as many times as I needed to up there. Just trying to be polite.
Let’s see…
We live in Fort Worth, a city which has a fairly large population of Spanish speakers. I don’t mean people who are bilingual in Spanish and English, I mean people who apparently ONLY speak Spanish, and are quite irate at having someone say “No hablo espanol”* in reply to a Spanish remark. To make matters worse, there’s been a couple of times when our number was mis-listed in a phone book as belonging to some Mexican family. Or at least, a Hispanic family…I forget what name everyone asked for, but it was a Hispanic last name.
Some little idiot gave our number as her own to her high school. We got listed in the high school phone book. THAT was a lot of fun. She gave our number out to quite a few of her partying friends, who would call up at all hours of the day or night wanting to know about homework, or party plans, or whatever.
My brother-in-law only has a cell phone, and of course he has to pay for his phone calls by the minute. So he uses OUR phone number as his call-back number for the doctor, the dentist, his creditors, etc. He has a rather lax attitude about bill-paying, too, so sometimes his creditors are QUITE anxious to talk to him. I’m probably going to have a long heart-to-heart talk with my husband, and tell him that I will no longer accept calls for his brother, and I won’t take messages for him either. He can get himself a voicemail service if he doesn’t want to talk to people. Besides which, I am perfectly capable of answering the phone in my sleep, assuring whoever is on the other end that I will take appropriate action, promptly fall back asleep, and then forget all about the incident until something jars my memory. IF it ever jars my memory.
I’ve had one guy call here and demand to know “Who is this?” I always reply “I’m the one who owns this phone number, who are YOU?” He cursed me out, wanting to know who I was, and I just hung up the phone. He called me a couple more times, and I refused to answer his question. He had my number, I wasn’t gonna give him my name! When I was able to recognize his voice, I’d just lay the receiver down for a while and let him shout his questions to the uncaring couch. He hasn’t called here for a while, so I guess he doesn’t want to know who I am any more.
*“I don’t speak Spanish.”
See, this I just don’t understand… Why the hell are people rude and nasty when they are the ones who dialed a wrong number? Why? Why-why-why-why-why???
Phone numbers change. Cell phones in particular because they are so damn expensive and a lot of people switch plans when they find something more cost-effective.
What possesses people? You dial a number, it doesn’t belong to the person you thought. Oops, so sorry. Why get all evil and nasty? It’s not the fault of the number’s new owner that you don’t have an updated number. WTF?
When we got our land line, we had loads of calls for a woman named " Marilyn Something". We inheirited this dead beat woman’s number.
I had to explain to every caller that we do not live wherever Marilyn Something lived and got the number in May of 1993 and please make a note of it in the records.
When I explained that we lived in this city and this deadbeat lived in that city, it seemed to click in all their collective heads.
They trickled off, but I got a call for her not so long ago and it threw me for a loop. I just told them it was a wrong number and then I remembered all about Marilyn.
The most persistant creditor was Invisible Fencing. Eventually I told the nice lady there instead of hounding ( har!) the phone number, just go to the physical address and have your man dig up the wiring and equipment for the IF. Never heard from them again.
It’s even worse when it doesn’t involve a phone. Last week, two process servers and a deputy sheriff showed up at my apartment door looking for some guy named Rodriguez. The process servers were pretty clueless, and demanded all kinds of proof of my and my wife’s identities, but the deputy took our word for it that we weren’t Rodriguez.
Also, a while back, before we had broadband, we had a second phone line for dialup. The number was unlisted, and only in very rare cases was it used for voice. If the number rang, I’d answer:
*“Eastside Wrong Number Bureau.”
“Huh?”
“Eastside Wrong Number Bureau. If you dial a wrong number on the east side of Indianapolis, it comes here.”
“Oh. OK. Goodbye”*
One day I got a moron who must have also called Angelicate and Lynn, because he was instantly hostile and demanding to know who I was.
*“Who is this?”
“The guy who has this number.”
“What number is this?”
“The wrong one.”
“And how do you know that?!?”
“Because this line is not used for voice traffic. If it rings, it’s a wrong number.”
“WHO IS THIS?!?!?!”
“The guy who’s hanging up on you.”* SLAM
I like to have fun with the fools, if I think about it first… 
We get tons of wrong number callers.
One is a little old lady that absolutely certain that she’s calling her son’s number. When you tell her she’s got the wrong number she starts crying and carrying on that he son is avoiding her and she knows he’s there.
DH got a fun one on the cell phone last night! It went something like this:
DH: Hello?
Moron: Dude, where are you? I’m at the [location], I got the money.
DH: What the fuck are you talking about, who the fuck are you?
Moron: Aw, come on don’t play me like that, you got the stuff?
DH: Do you know who you just called?
Moron: Some idiot’s name??
DH: Nope, you’ve got Officer DH and I’m sending someone to check out whats going on over at the [place]
Moron: FUCK click
BTW, DH is not an officer, he was just messing with the guy. We were hoping the moron would call back, but he never did.
I also live in a dorm, though I’ve had the same room for about 2 years. Sometimes I get calls for occupants prior to that. Just a day or two ago, a little old woman left a message saying “Hillary, who’s that man on your answering machine? Anyway, it was nice of you to call your grandma,” etc. I’m sort of confused as to how she thought this was Hillary’s number instead of mine, since I identify myself on the message. Oh well. If she calls again, we’ll see what happens.
I get 2-3 calls a day for Michelle. It’s the same person calling over and over again. The name on the Caller ID says Chocolate Brown. I swear I am going to start calling Chocolate when I know he is sleeping and ask for some random person. He’s a real asshole when he calls my house at midnight, and I think he needs to get woken up in the same manner.
Well, Indygrrl, since you have the caller ID, I wonder how practical it is to get a restraining order? Something to think about …
A few years back I had the oddest wrong number experience. At first I didn’t realize I was getting the same wrong number because it would happen only once every couple of months. What was happening is that every now and then I would get a call – not always from the same person – apparently leaving a message to some trucking company dispatcher. After I saw the pattern arising, instead of simply saying “this is a wrong number” I asked, “what number are you calling?” The fellow said he was dialing some 1-800 number! Let me assure you, my home number is not an 800 number. I can only assume the company in question has some sort of “roll over” system where if a certain number is busy, it rolls over to another, and so forth. And somewhere in that list is my number. Eventually they must have figured it out, though, because I haven’t gotten one of these calls in the last year or so …
Man, the hamsters are grumpy today. I’ve been trying to post this for over a half-hour now …
Hmmm…interesting. You have her name… and you have Voicemail. Would you consider revising your outgoing message?
"Hi, this is Jayn! I’m not here right now, so I’ll let my answering machine entertain you:
**
Chris McDonald don’t live here,
E-I-E-I-O…!
Dat Ole Crack Whore Done Disappeared!
E-I-E-I-O…!
With a whine-whine here
And a whine-whine there
Here a whine, there a whine,
Cause Dat Bitch Don’t Have a Land-Line!
Chris McDonald don’t live here,
E-I-E-I… OOOoooooooooooohhh!!! **
Doesn’t any-one else not answer phones? If I don’t recognize the caller-ID, I just let the call go to voice mail.
Ahh, the wrong number. Fun, fun.
I was once called at 6AM (during my college days) by a very inebriated-sounding gal whose name escapes me. She was looking for some friend of hers.
I’m a pretty passive person, especially when waking up from a deep slumber and barely comprehending that I have some sort of communication device in my hand.
Once I explained that it was a wrong number, she proceeded to ramble drunkenly about the friend she was looking for, asking me questions about myself, and eventually talking about her brother.
I didn’t have the presence of mind to think of a good way to end the call.
Half an hour later, she tires herself out and says bye, letting me return to sleep.
Until I get up an hour later for class. 
If I could change my message, her name would be long gone. Unfortunately, since it was never reset properly, her name is still there, I can’t get into my voicemail to change it, and I can’t be bothered to hassle Maintenance to fix things. I figured I probably wouldn’t check my voice-mail anyways if I had it, so I just left it as is.
Besides, I’ve been here for six months, presumably she’s been gone for ten, and this is the first time I’ve had someone calling up here for her. I’ve talked to the front desk, though. Hopefully it’s fixed, and if it’s not, well, I haven’t had any more calls anyways.
Oh, and j66, not everyone has caller id. Especially not college students living in residence. Like me. I have to answer every call I get (unless I’m busy, then I hang up without talking) because I dont’ know who it is until I answer, and I certainly don’t want someone leaving me a message because I’d never know and can’t reply.
Yes.
Signed,
Pedro-Vargas-didn’t-pay-his-bills-and-all-I-got-was-his-lousy-phone-number
We’ve had our new phone number for almost a year now, and still get calls on a regular basis from people looking for George or Theresa (evidently a married couple who used to have the phone number). When they moved, they must not have told anybody. We’ve had calls from their kid’s school saying that he was absent, from their financial advisor, from friends who thought they were close friends, just to name a few. Kinda makes you wonder…
I must have the most common cell phone number in Alabama. At least three times a month, I get phone calls from people wanting to talk to people who are not me, at my number And it’s usually different people they’re trying to contact, though ‘Angela’ does seem to be recurrent among the ‘drunken crack whore, calling-me-at-three-in-the-morning’ set. And they’ve got the right number! One of them was sober enough for me to interrogate, and I discovered that ‘Angela’ was in her phone book (so she’s not misdialing), and that 90% of the time, her calls to her go through just fine. The other ten percent, she gets me, and we don’t know why. She’s the nicest of the crack whores. I think I’ve talked to her three times now. Last time, we had a little conversation before she hung up.
And then, of course, there’s the time I answered the phone to a harangue from a woman who wanted to know why the fuck I’d stolen her cell phone. Now THAT’S memorable. (I got my cell phone straight from the company, still in the packaging, and told her as much.) After her fifth call, she decided I was telling the truth.
I, too, live in a dorm, in a room that has always been used for female students. Our voicemail message says, “Hey, this is Vampy and TR, leave a message at the beep,” in TR’s very female voice. A few weeks ago, we found a very long message on the machine for ‘Brad’ about someone who had died, and the funeral arrangements. I give up.
Call your cell phone company. I used to work for Sprint PCS and twice I had people call in and discovered that each one of them had a cell phone number to another phone as well as theirs. No idea of how it could have happened, nor how it could have gone on for so long (well over a year in one case), but it did. So it’s entirely possible that your cell phone number could be assigned to another phone at the present time.
One time I had a loud outgoing message, which detailed exactly who lived at the number (myself [first name Brian] and my roommate named John). Naturally, I come home to find a message on the machine where some guy is shouting rather loudly, “Mike if your there, pick up the phone…Mike, it’s your dad, pick up the phone…Mike!”
Then, as the machine was dying, it’d still record, but it wouldn’t beep to let you know to start talking. In my outgoing message, I explained that the machine didn’t beep and that you should just start talking a couple of seconds after the message finished. Nobody ever listened, all my messages had silence for about thirty seconds, followed by someone saying, “I don’t think this thing is working.”
Years ago, when I was young, my parents had to change our phone number to avoid harrassment (er, it’s a long story). For years and years afterward we kept bill-collection calls for one Rodney Bonar. The name always made me laugh. Heh. Boner. Not so funny anymore, but it didn’t take much to amuse me when I was thirteen. We also got calls all the time for something called “Tri-County”. I’ve still got no idea what Tri-County is.
Anyway, just a few weeks ago I woke up to find a message on the machine, left around five in the morning. “So-n-so, it looks like grandpa’s not going to make it. You should come down here as soon as possible.” I didn’t know what to do - we could’ve called the hospital, but by then it was, maybe, ten o’clock. Grandpa probably hadn’t lasted so long. RIP.
I used to work at the local Super 8 as a front desk clerk while in high school, and the phone number for the motel was one digit off from the phone number to the local hospital.
This was how the conversation usually went.
Me: Super 8, how may I direct your call?
Them: John Smith’s room please?
Me: I don’t show anyone by that name, would it be under any other? (sometimes a wife’s…)
Them: No, it’s under John Smith. Hold on; let me see what the room number is…(paper shuffling)
Me: Was he supposed to check in today?
Them: No, he’s been there for a couple of days… (still shuffling paper to find a room number)
Me: Was he supposed to check out today?
Them: No, not until next week…. Where did I put that piece of paper with the room number on it? I sent him flowers yesterday, so I know I have it….
Me: I don’t see any record of a guest by that name. Are you sure he’s staying here?
Them: Well of course he is… Here it is! Room 304! Can you please connect me with room 304?
Me: Ma’am, we don’t have a room 304. Which motel are you trying to reach?
Them: Motel? No, this is the hospital.
Me: No, I’m afraid not, this is the Super 8 Motel. I can get you the number
Them: Oh! Sorry to bother you. click!
I dreaded the day that, by some odd coincidence, we had a guest by the same name, and I would have to inform the caller that the guest ‘checked out.’
Never happened though.