That’s what I don’t get. You make a phone call. A person you don’t know answers the phone and says you have the wrong number. What is more likely, that you did in fact call a wrong number, or that there is a psycho in your friend’s apartment trying to keep you from talking to him? A strangely large number of people seem to think it’s the second.
For the last few months, we have arrived home to answering machine messages for “Ken and Karen!”. The bulk of the messages were from some older sounding lady, calling to chit chat with Karen. Yet, apparently, Ken and Karen took to giving out our phone number to everyone, because we also got this call from the local k-12 school up the road:
So, finally one day I catch a person calling for them.
Me: Hello.
Lady: Yes, hello. Karen?
Me: No, you have the wrong number.
Lady: Uh, no I DON’T. I’ve called here and left–
Me: Yeah, left messages for Ken and Karen about ((rattles off list)). They still don’t live here.
Lady: Well… I… I would like to speak to Karen!
Me: She doesn’t live here, ma’am.
Lady: How do YOU know?
Me: I think I’d know who is in my house.
: click :
On an only vaguely related note, I used to block the caller ID on my cellphone, then call my classmates (in high school) from around the corner of the hallway pretending to be a stalker ala [your favorite horror movie here]–“I’m watching you” etc. It was probably one of the better pranks I’ve ever pulled, although it had no replay value, at least among its smarter victims.
Oh–just remembered this. You know Torii Hunter, the baseball player? My cousin in Minnesota got a new cellphone and ended up with Mr. Hunter’s old number. He got a lot of “let’s go to lunch, Torii” calls from female callers. Hrm.
Back when my family had Verizon we used to get a lot of phone calls in Spanish asking for various Spanish-speaking people. I heard at the time that Verizon was assigning San Diego phone numbers to cellphones sold in Baja California. Whether or not that’s true, I don’t know. Regardless, I didn’t speak any Spanish at the time–but the callers seemed to figure out they had the wrong number when they were getting responses in a different language. These days I could probably struggle my way through an explanation and an apology, but I don’t get calls in Spanish anymore.
Oh–another one I get a lot is the accidental call from the cellphone at work. My name, due to its spelling, is the first on everyone’s cellphone list (at least the alphabetical ones). So people without flip-phones who forgot to turn on their keylock often ended up hitting a button in their pocket and calling the first name on their list, me. One of my friends who worked at Subway always called me accidentally from work and I’d hear her making sandwiches; one time my boss called me accidentally from his car on the way home and I got a long voicemail message of his favorite rap song.
For some years I had a number which, if you reversed the last two digits, was that of an elderly woman, Mrs. Warnell. How do I know? Because one (equally elderly) friend called for her at least twice a week. I’d say politely that there was no one here by that name, and would get an outraged, “Well!” and a slam in my ear.
I finally looked Mrs. Warnell up in the phone book, and from then on when her friend would call I would explain that she’d misdialed the last two numbers, but if she’d call xxx-xxxx she’d get her friend. So what happened? I was met with an outraged “Well!” and a slam in my ear. Every single time. It’s a sad commentary on how boring my life was at that point that the phone calls for Mrs. Warnell were always a highlight.
On a more pleasant note, a few years ago we moved and, with our new phone number, started getting constant calls for “Worshipmaster Jones.” Like three or four calls nevery single day. Finally, my hubby, realizing that’s a Shriner title, asked the next person who called for him to please call the temple (since we didn’t know which one it was) and get the correct number, and call us back with it. She actually was kind enough to do it, so then we called Worshipmaster Jones and explained to him what was going on and got his permission to give his new number out. He was floored by our offer but very pleased. I guess it had been his number for over 25 years, so getting people to change to a new one was a challenge. We gave it out regularly for some while; we even had it on our answering machine, and taped to the phone to lessen our aggravation. It was several months before the calls stopped coming in. Finally, after over a year with no calls, I got one last one. We’d bought a new phone so I didn’t have the number handy, but the woman begged me to find it – turns out Mrs. Jones had cancer. 
I dug it out for herand that was the last call we got for them. But it sure made life interesting for a while there.
Our current number, which we got last summer, ends in two zeroes, yet amazingly, we haven’t gotten a single wrong number. We were sure it would have been a business number and the calls would be never-ending, but fortunately, no such luck. You guys have given me a bunch of evil ideas for the next time it happens, though.
That’s like my all-time favorite:
Caller: May I speak to Joh?
Me: I’m sorry, there’s no “John” living here.
Caller: Are you sure?
At my old job we decided the billing office needed a dedicated line instead of taking all the calls through the switchboard. Since there was a line that had previously been for a dedicated modem we decided to plug a phone into it. I immediately started getting calls for Jane Doe. Judging from the “call center” sounds in the background I was sure they were collection agencies. I would tell them there was no one working there by that name. I would tell them that I was the only one in the department, and none of the nurses would have given out this number because none of them would have known it existed. I would tell them the number belonged to a business and up until very recently had been used for nothing but a modem, and that had been for at least four years. Yet still none of them believed that maybe this woman had put a fake number on all her credit transactions? The calls eventually stopped so I guess they all decided I wasn’t actually Jane Doe borrowing the name of a legitimate business to answer my phone with in order hide from bill collectors.
A year later we’re busting at the seams and I start working from home. At that point we decide the best solution in regards to the phone is to just use my cell phone and have the clinic reimburse me. So I change all our claims and patient statments to print my cell number on them.
Two years later I am laid off and the idiot outsourcing company that was hired because they could do the job cheaper than me apparently has never noticed (or didn’t know how to change) the phone number on the claims and statements, so I kept getting calls. So I put the following message on my cell: “Hi, this is lorinada. PLEASE NOTE THIS IS NO LONGER THE PHONE NUMBER FOR SORRY SOB DIALYSIS CENTER. YOU NEED TO CALL THE MAIN CLINIC NUMBER. Anyone else, leave a message.” And, guess what? Yep. Not a single person ever listened to the message. They just blathered on and on about a statement that made them mad or a claim they needed info on or whatever. Eventually the calls for them stopped. Except for one ignorant case manager at Concentra who still, six months later, regularly calls wanting the first date of dialysis for Patient A. I don’t even bother to answer or return her calls anymore. Maybe she’ll get fired.
But I think this one takes the cake. First of all, my voice mail messages always start out with “Hi, this is lorinada…” But, of course, no one ever actually listens to the message. So one day I had a message along the lines of:
“This is Crack Law Firm calling for Jane Smith to tell you we have had enough. You have dodged every attempt to resolve this matter. Tomorrow there will be agents knocking on your door at 123 Main St. to force you to deal with this matter blah blah blah blah blah.”
Of course, Jane Smith was a person who had once lived in the same building but had moved away years ago.
So I called them back and left a message along the lines of: “You know, I’m not even in the investigative/law business and even I could find Jane Smith with a 10-second Google search. Go ahead and send those agents to my door, and see what happens when you harrass the wrong person because you are too much of an idiot to do a proper skip trace.”
There was more than one deadbeat in that building. I guess everyone came after me because I was the only one that actually paid my rent and thus was never evicted or had to move out under cover of darkness. My upstairs neighbor had a satellite dish that she took with her when she moved out one night. For months I had the dish people knocking on my door to disconnect the service and confiscate the dish. I always told them “go ahead”.
The front desk phone number for my office is similar to an IRS help line number. We sure do look forward to tax season.
OK, I’m curious. What the hell did they do after you said “go ahead”?
I had a genius today who called and then asked me who I was and why I called him. ??? YOU called ME. I have yet to make a single outgoing phone call while at work. Moron.
Okay, this is going to drive me nuts and I won’t be able to think about anything else for the rest of the day. Do you know the name of the story?
Probably one of those idiots who calls every number that shows up on his caller ID, never mind that it might just be a wrong-number hangup. And then proceeds to dial the wrong number himself.
When I was in college, my dorm room number was one digit off from the Bursar’s office, and we’d get occasional phone calls from irate students or parents trying to resolve tuition issues. I told them it was a wrong number, being sometimes cruel in imagination but hardly ever in reality. My evil roommate, if the call was too early in the morning, told them it was a billing error and the disputed amount had been credited to their account.
I don’t know how many people she screwed over that year.
You expect a fogey to understand how to use a speed dial function?
We had the collections people calling for quite some time about a Julie Somethingorother who had not paid a variety of bills. Every time I would explain that Julie didn’t live here and I didn’t know who she was, and every time they doubted my story. Finally they accused me of lying.
Bear in mind, I’m a man with a deep voice. I said “Do I sound like a Julie to you?”
“Uh, no.”
“Fine. I’m calling the police.”
They didn’t call back anymore.
Yeah…well, he had no idea that he’d called that store.
Equally irritating are the ones that tell me they talked to somebody from the store earlier. Who? Don’t remember. What department? Don’t remember. Well, how the hell am I supposed to know? I could put you through to SOMEWHERE if you even tell me what you were talking to them about. But nooooo…
Ah yes. “Destructive Forces in Life,” which ran in The New Yorker in 1936. The miscreant’s name was Bert Scursey. (Thurber had so many story-worthy friends, with such piquant names, that he MUST have been making them up.) Thurber, never the most PC of writers, devoted a long tiresome “mushmouf” sequence to Scursey’s portrayal of a black cleaning lady.
But the Shu-Rite Shoestore bit. That was genius. Phone pranks? In 1936? Who could have thought of such a thing?
I will give a dollar to anyone who knows, withou googling, what the phrase “The Wrong George” means in the context of this thread.
Having no idea who “Thurber” was, I looked him up on Wikipedia, which led me to his Wikiquote page, from which I got this highly appropriate gem:
“Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?”
Ouch. I should’ve looked up proper coding while I was at it.
STORY ONE: quite some time ago, I received a phone call from a VERY pissed-off woman who demanded to know why I was hanging out with her husband at some place called the “Starlight Lounge”. I informed her that I was only 13 years old, had no idea who her husband was, and didn’t even have a clue where this lounge was. She cussed a blue streak at me, told me, “You’re just a lying whore trying to save your lying ass. I found your name and phone number on a matchbook in his pocket and I’m going to come to your house and beat the shit out of you for trying to steal my husband you lying whore bitch.” She flat-out refused to believe me, so I called my mom to the phone, told her what was going on, and she…um…set the “lady” straight.
To this day I still have no idea how this woman’s sleazeball husband would’ve gotten my name and phone number on a matchbook.
STORY TWO: For a while, before the theater went out of business, my parents had a phone number that was one number off the local XXX theater. (Last number on the XXX theater phone was 0; last number of my parents’ was 9). Back in the day of rotary-dial phones, it was very common for people to not-quite-complete the rotation from “0” all the way around, so it was real common for my parents to get phone calls for this theater. One night around 11:30 or so, my mom was awoken out of a sound sleep by the telephone ringing. She picked it up, the caller asked, “Yeah, what’re you showing tonight?” She, not-really-awake and not realizing it was a call for the theater and thinking it was an obscene call, shot back, “None of your damn business, you nasty pervert” and hung up. Shortly thereafter, the theater changed their phone number. Probably unrelated.
STORY THREE: I got repeated phone calls at work for Mr. SomebodyElse. When I said he wasn’t there, they’d usually hang up, but one day I got a VERY persistent caller.
Me: I’m sorry, I have no idea who you’re talking about.
Caller: Is this <wrong number>
Me: No, it’s <my number>
C: Are you sure?
Me: Yeeeeeeeeeeesssssssss…
C: What company is this again?
Me: <Company Name>
C: Are you sure you work there?
About this time I got tired of this, so I held the phone slightly away from my mouth and shouted for my boss, who had heard the whole thing.
Me: Boss! Can you come here a minute?
Boss: Sure, what do you need?
Me: What’s my phone number?
B, speaking right into the phone: <number>
Me: What company is this?
B: <Company Name>
Me: You ever heard of <name>?
B: Nope.
Me: Who am I?
B: <name>
Me: Do I work here?
B, laughing: You sure do!
Me: You sure?
B: Absolutely.
I put the phone back up to my ear and said, “You still there?” I was surprised to find out the guy WAS, in fact, still there.
Me: Did you catch all that?
C: Yes.
Me: So, yeah, I’m real sure that the guy you’re looking for isn’t here, that this is <Company> and that I do, in fact, work here. Any other stupid questions?
C: No…
Me: How’s about you tell all the people you got working wherever you are who are trying to get ahold of this other guy that he’s not at this number?
C: OK, I’ll do that.
Me: Thank you VERY much.
Never did get one of THOSE calls again…
STORY FOUR: (This one I actually sort of felt sorry for…or would’ve, if the dipshit hadn’t woken me up with his stupid phone calls).
We’re sound asleep. The phone rings. Bwuh? Answering machine picks up, I start to go back to sleep. Hangup, the phone rings AGAIN. Well, my family knows that I don’t answer the phone after 9:00pm, because I have to get up early for work. Therefore, if it’s not an emergency they’re to either call at another time or leave a message. However, if it IS an emergency, they hang up and call again. That’s the signal to me that “this is an emergency, get up answer the phone I gotta talk to you NOW”. So I get up, bolt for the phone, only to hear some drunk guy raving in my ear about “Martha, I’m so sorry baby, please take me back…”
I said, (really pissed off, because I had, afterall, been asleep), “You’ve got a wrong number. There’s no Martha here. Never has been.”
He starts crying and saying, “Martha, please don’t be like that, hon, I’m really sorry…”
I said, “Look, I’m real sorry you and your girlfriend are having problems, but it’s late, you woke me up, and THIS IS A WRONG NUMBER.”
I then hung up. By this time DogDad had gotten up to see what was wrong. I told him about it, and about this time Drunk Guy called BACK. “Martha, baby, honey, I’m *real real * sorry, please…” I interrupted, “Dude. There’s NO MARTHA HERE. YOU HAVE A WRONG NUMBER. DON’T WASTE ANY MORE QUARTERS CALLING MY NUMBER.” I even asked him what number he was trying to call. He couldn’t remember. sigh
I hung up, and he (of course) called right back. Kev answered this time, and evidently a male voice on the other end either conviced Drunk Guy that he really-o truli-o had a wrong number, OR (more likely) that Martha really really meant it this time and already had another guy.
Years ago I had a number that was close to a local pediatrition. I constantly got phone calls in the middle of the night by hysterical parents. When they were told that they had a wrong number they would get angry at me as if I were the one who had dialed wrong. I tried to be patient because I know parents are scared for their children, but hey, it is the middle of the night and all I’ve done is answered my own phone!
Even more years ago I was getting phone messages from someone identifying herself as grandma. She would ask me to come over and fix this or have dinner or help grandpa do something. I felt bad for her because I could just imagine her getting no response and feeling abandoned by her grandchild. I finally changed my answering machine to say: You have reached Khadaji. I am not home right now. If this is the woman who is identifying herself as Grandma, please note that you have a wrong number. I have no grandparents still living. All others leave a message.
This took care of the problem within a week.
How is it that all of you get wrong numbers from people who actually speak your native language!? Virtually 100% of the time, if I get a wrong number, or if I misdial myself, I get someone whose native tongue doesn’t even use the same alphabet as mine.
The notable exception is the woman who consistently called my wife’s parent’s place, at least three times a week.
Me: “Hello?”
Crazy Woman: “Carmella?”
Me: “Sorry, you have the wrong number?”
CW: String of either Italian, Spanish or Portuguese, with an upturn in tone at the end indicating that she was asking me a question.
Me: Something exceptionally hilarious, which had no logical reason to be in any phone conversation.
CW: long pause, then hangs up.
Repeat tri-weekly, ad infinitum.