"Sorry, Wrong Number. Oh, Unless I'm Just A Big, Fat Liar"

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
61

I got a decent drunk-dial during my college days - before 7AM one morning, I was awoken by a gal looking for ‘Greg’, I think the name was. I hadn’t the presence of mind to be sarcastic, and the conversation meandered on for thirty minutes.

Lately, I’ve been getting all manner of debt collection services calling for ‘Roxanne Reynolds’ - or Grenolds, or something like that. Apparently, she used to have my number, or lied about her number at some point, and a LOT of people want to talk to her. These places will leave messages on my answering machine and I’ll call their toll-free number to tell them that they have the wrong number, but it never seems to stop… as soon as one agency is straightened out, another one starts calling.

Most amusing wrong number I ever got was the local county prosecuting attorney. His office called looking for Michael Knight.

Apparently, one man can make a difference.

62

I used to be a telephone operator for IBM Kingston, and crazily enough, I answered the phone “IBM Kingston.” Frequently enough:

“Is this IBM?”
“Yes”
“Is this Kingston?”
“Yes”

63

Back when I was in high school and lived at home, I had my own phone line in my room. The phone book entry for my number under my parent’s name said, “Teenager phone”. I used to “wrong number” calls all the time. Some of them turned into marathon calls and it’s amazing what a compete stranger will tell you over the phone. Even got a few dates out of the deal. Fun times!

64

Heh. Our phone number is very close to both the local welfare transport people and the local rehab. My VM very clearly states “Hi, you’ve reached Litoris and hubby, this is neither PathFinders nor MCHRA, so if you need a ride to your doctor’s appointment or are thinking of having a drink, please hang up and check the number you have dialed.” We still get VM’s all the time saying “yeh, this is Betty Pogohead, I need a ride to the health department for my syphilis test. I will be waiting on the corner.” Whatever…

On the flipside, I am a very polite person and if I misdial a number and get VM, I will leave a message “Sorry, I dialed the wrong number, have a great day anyway” so as not to get those return calls “yeh, this number was on my caller ID.”

A few days ago, I was trying to call a friend of mine. I must have misdialed, because I got some business.

*Business Guy: “Thanks for calling XYZ Cash Advance, what can I do for ya?”

Me: “Oh, sorry, I have the wrong number. Have a great day.”

BG: “Oh, who were you trying to reach?”

Me: "Uhhh, my friend Mark. Sorry, I must have misdialed the number, have a great - "

BG: “Is this Mindy? How the heck are you?”

Me: “No, this isn’t Mindy. I dialed the wrong number. Sorry for bothering you.”

BG: “Are you sure this isn’t Mindy?”

Me: click*

Seriously, the guy was kind of creepy.

65

When I used to work at the local transit company, my extension was 4505; unfortunately, the area code for suburban Montreal is 450. I got, by at least an order of magnitude, more calls from other people in the company who were trying to dial the south shore and forgot to press 9 than from people who were trying to reach me.

66

I have a very common name (both first and last), so there are a lot of people out there who share it. (Google my name and you get around 6 million hits!) In the old days, before everyone carried cell phones and when people actually looked phone numbers up in the phone book to call someone, I used to get a LOT of mistaken phone calls. It was never a problem as long as the person who was trying to reach Jane Doe Class of 1990 believed me when I explained, no, I am Jane Doe 1980. One day, though, my phone rang:

Caller: Jane?

Me: Yes, that’s me.

Caller: Jane, honey, this is Aunt Ruby.

Me: Uh, I don’t have an Aunt Ruby.

Well, this woman (who has a trailer trash accent and sounds like she’s had a 3-pack-a-day habit for twenty years) insists that I do SO have an Aunt Ruby, I know who she is, and the rest of the family just doesn’t want me to talk to her, so I’m lying. She keeps asking me if my name is really Jane Doe, which I agree that it is, but when I point out that there are many, many Jane Does (one of whom is stuck with a freakin’ whacko for an aunt, but not me) and I’m not the one she is looking for, she insists that it is a family conspiracy to keep me away from her.

And once in the middle of the night I got a call:

Caller (a young man): Jane?

Me: yes, who is calling please?

Caller: Jane, it’s Mike. (Sounding desperate.)

Me: I know two Mikes, which one are you? (Actually, I couldn’t believe it was either Mike that I knew, since neither was the type to call me up at 2 am sounding traumatized.)

Caller: (in tears) Jane, you KNOW which Mike this is. Why are you torturing me this way?

Me: I’m not torturing you, I just don’t know who you are. Tell me.

Caller: (sobbing like his heart would break) Jane, please, don’t do this to me. Just treat me like a human being! Oh god, why are you so cruel?

Etc., etc., until I give up and hang up. I have no idea if it was a prank (probably) or a drunk who really could not get it through his head that I was not the Jane he wanted. The wierd thing was that I got a very similar call – several years and a city removed from that episode – from a guy threatening to kill himself if I didn’t acknowledge that I knew him.

Even Aunt Ruby’s call was in broad outline the same as the two guys. Kinda creepy – is this a more common type of prank call than I realize? Or did Mike go kill himself after I hung up? Sheesh, I hope not.

67

Like your workplace, Matt, our work extensions are four digits and you dial nine for an outside line. There are about four common area codes around here, and “nine-plus any one of those area codes” is a dead extension due to the very problem you describe.

68

Gaaaa! I hate, hate, hate when people do that! Is your need to know every aspect of what happens in the periphery of your life that great? If I wanted a call back, I’d would have left a message requesting one.

Of course, the calls I’ve gotten like that were always from people who were trying to figure out what my evil, sinister motives were for calling in the first place, so maybe it’s just something that batshit insane people do. Still cheeses me off to no end, though.

69

My favourite wrong number? My SO had a number that was close to the one for a funeral home. So we used to get messages of the answering machine about coming over to pick up the body. Yes I know I shouldn’t find this funny. But I do. I was always tempted to go over and get it.

(Well I do hope the departed found there proper resting place, but honestly, if you hear a message that says "This is Henry’s answering maching"you my pause to reflect that most funeral homes are not named Henry.)

70

Today is my birthday and I want to thank you for one of the best laughs I had all year.

71

I once worked for a company that provided a network monitoring solution. I was in the call queue for the support group.

One day, we started getting calls where the caller would request “That green drink.”

Apparently, there was some sort of eat healthy, get good sleep, improve yourself via this 297 part self help course, and make sure you have 2 “green drinks” a day.

They had a phone number, that was described as 1-800-go-for-green. Our number worked out to 1-800-go-4-green. Easy mistake, but they wanted us to give them the right number… it took us months to figure out what the callers wanted, and how to direct them to the right place…

Nothing worse than running from a colleagues’ desk to grab the support line for a “green drink” call.

The Green folks ended up sending us the “self help course, in 297 parts” for free… but no green drink.

72

The 800 number for my employer is 1 digit off from an IRS help line. Every year, about this time, you start hearing people all over the office patiently explaining that we are not the IRS and we can’t help them get a form the need.

73

Heheh I had a job way way back where we still used an acoustic coupler thingy to connect up to send e-mails etc. (I think normal modems did exist, but we were a bit behind). However that telephone should never have rung. Whenever it did, though, it was always some fool desperately keen to buy tickets for a concert at Hammersmith Odeon (admittedly, we were also in the Hammersmith area of London, so that bit wasn’t TOO strange, just one digit off, I suppose).
But, as others have said , it’s it odd how the diallers of wrong numbers so often refuse to take it in when politely informed that they have the wrong numbers. And you know how keen people can be to get tickets for the latest important (to them) concert.

Grrr - "PLEASE listen and believe me - this is absolutely not the number you want. No concerts here, and no tickets either. This is is merely a very boring office. You really must get off the line and dial again if you want any chance at all of getting tickets, you know. Yes, I am sure you did dial carefully – so, perhaps it is a fault with British Telecom but I am just not the Sodding Hammersmith Odeon. Look, if you WANT to give me lots of money, fine, but I cannot help you get tickets – I’m a librarian. Sound like quite a good gig, really, so do go and try dialling again, and best of luck.:slight_smile:
Oh, and it can be a real pain if your 'phone number is only one digit away from that of a local taxi firm,m because, then, of course, you get lots of late night callers desperate to get a cab for the happy drunken way home. And they can be quite insistent too. Why the hell could the similar number not have been that of some quiet day-time company, like a lawyer or a hairdresser, eh?

(Note, I don’t in the least mind wrong numbers when the caller quickly apologises and disappears with no argument.)

74

I had a friend whose last name was “Buss” not Bus. but she’d get tons of late night calls asking when the 10:40 for Tacoma leaves…

75

So, is there any way to block a number on a cell phone? I’ve had my Virgin Mobile # since September, and since it’s my “in case of emergencies” phone only, I’ve only given the # to a handful of people, all of whom I know personally, no businesses (except AAA) etc. Apparently, however, whoever had the number last owes someone money since I’ve gotten about a dozen calls by some creditor in the past 2 months for them. Somehow I doubt they’ll believe me if I call and tell them they’ve got the wrong number…

76

Man, THAT is priceless! I don’t have any great wrong-number stories, just funny conversations with people I didn’t know I somehow wound up speaking to, usually telemarketers. I don’t mind telemarketers too much, but I must have a cruel streak deep inside me. I got a call from a girl with a pretty voice selling Verizon long distance years ago while I lived in Oregon. She tried to sell me for a half hour while I pretended to be a drunk Rastaman. I was at my parent’s house once when they got a call from some some company called Republic Windows, who wanted to install all new windows in their house for $10,000. I told the lady I’d pay them $15,000 for the job, but only if they could guarantee the windows were all fabricated and installed only by true Republicans. Good times. :slight_smile:

Where I work has a similar voicemail problem to those described. Every weekend, without fail, we get 2-3 calls from people angry their paper wasn’t delivered. I’m the weekend reporter here, and alone in the office. I can’t do anything but give them a number to call during the week. I got so sick of fielding these calls I changed the main line’s voicemail message so it now has very specific instructions on whom to call for ANY situation, what number to use, and what times of day a person is available. A person has to sit and listen to this entire message for about 30 seconds before they can leave a message of their own. Now we have more hangups than anything, but wouldn’t you know it that every tenth caller STILL leaves a rant about how they didn’t get their paper, and they want someone to give them satisfaction RIGHT NOW!

The strange thing is, the main line to the office here is unpublished. It’s not on the business’ website, it’s not in the phone book. Hell, I had to ask my boss what number to call to reach the phone 20 feet from my desk, because I couldn’t find it anywhere. Yet somehow all the old geezers who subscribe can find us. Crap.

77

The cell number I’ve had for over seven years used to be assigned to some construction company who apparently advertised far and wide for employees. And still is doing it, I guess. For a while, my voicemail answer included, “If you want the construction company, please hang up and erase this number, it’s not theirs any more.” Two of the local colleges had this company’s number on their “part-time help wanted” boards. I think they finally removed it after a few calls from me. The state unemployment service had it on their listings; I don’t think anybody there had the authority to delete anything, so I started asking the callers to black it out in the directory. This works, until the next edition is distributed.

For a while, I asked some of the callers to complain about the referral. “Please tell them some drunk answered and cursed at you. Say nobody should be subjected to that kind of thing.” I didn’t ever feel I had the screaming-cursing thing down well enough to try it myself.

Now, when I impulsively answer a call and hear, “Acme Construction?” I’m saying, “No, the place got closed down by the INS/IRS/DEA/BATF/FBI for illegal alien slavery/tax evasion/fronting for a Colombian drug cartel/suspected terrorist activity/kiddie porn/whatever. You wouldn’t want to work there. You’d probably end up in Federal prison.”
:smiley:

78

My home number was one number off from both the local Latter Day Saints and a late-night Chinese place. Both were minor annoyances, but I was happy to cheerily answer the phone as one or the other when I started getting a rash of obscene calls.

Kansas used to be split up into 2 area codes, 316 and 913. Because Kansas City spills over into Missouri, the MO side was 816, and the KS side was 913. Somehow, our 913 number got published in connection with a Pug breeder, who must have been in the 816 area. We had some interesting messages from people who wanted to tell us their life stories about their previous Pugs, lifelong desire for Pugs, etc.

I don’t know who had our number before, but right after we moved in we started getting calls from a woman who sounded like Miss Cleo accusing me of hiding her man. By the time we’d decided the next time I’d put DH on the phone, she apparently found him. Darn!

And I just loooooove the barely-verbal toddlers allowed to call their little play-date friends at all hours, who call back incessantly and argue that they don’t, in fact, have the wrong number. Please believe me that if I did have a kid (as if), I wouldn’t give the poor thing the moronic trendy names I always get asked for!

We kept the last one for entertainment purposes. It was at some ungodly early-morning hour that we slept through, and some guy called for "Tim,"to inform him that he knew some gal who would tell him anything he wanted to hear, including how much she want his (anatomy) in her (anatomy), but only if Tim can meet him in the next hour or so. It rambles on for a good 3 1/2 minutes.

79

And vice-versa. If I answer the phone, “hello” and not with a business name, I’m probably not a business. At our last house, our number had once belonged to a lawyer. If answered or went to answering machine, we would get people who would leave messages for the lawyer without apparently listening.

80

My home phone number is one digit different (a 7 instead of 1, easy to mistake when it’s 2 a.m. and you’re a drunk horny guy) from an “escort service” ::coughcallgirlringcough:: I get some really interesting calls at 2 a.m.:

RIIIIING!!

me (panicking because it’s 2 a.m. and I’m afraid someone’s dead/ in an accident): HELLO???

random drunk horny guy: …yeah you sent this girl over and she didn’t like me, like I wanted a blow and she said she didn’t do that…

me: I’ll make sure to call your wife and tell her.

RDHG: OHMYGAWDYOUBITCHYOUCAN’TCALLMYFUCKINWIFESHE’LLKILLME…

me: Awesome! (click)