So I got a phone call at around 6 am this morning. The woman on the other end started to talk, then asked me what my name was. I answered with my first name (remember, 6 am, not thinking right), then asked for someone I didn’t know. She said he was her husband, and that he had a piece of paper with my name and phone number on it. I told her I was sorry I couldn’t help her, and she hung up, apparently still befuddled.
It only occurred to me (right) after: someone I don’t know apparently has a piece of paper with my name and phone number on it! The only stranger I’ve done that for recently is a mailman (who was going to look into a certified letter I never received), but the woman asked me if I worked for a tree trimming service - what do mailmen have to do with tree trimming?
I’m not sure if there’s something sinister going on (in which case I shouldn’t even have given my name - my number is unlisted), or if the mailman is also a tree trimmer and he just forgot about my name and phone number or what. Any ideas on how to proceed investigating this, if anything?
Next time you see your mailman, ask him if his wife found the treetrimmer’s number.
Probably she was looking for that number, he told her it was in his pocket, but she found he had a bunch of random notes in there. So she called you by mistake.
It could have been a scammer cold-calling numbers, and hoping to get information from the people who answered.
So, what you know you have now is a woman with your phone number and your first name.
Did she volunteer your last name at all? If not, then you can’t even assume that she has that.
The story she told you may actually be true, but even then, the possibilities are pretty wide-ranging.
Here’s what I can think of off-hand -
the lady’s husband (mailman) is a tree-trimmer on the side,
the mailman was going to *hire *a tree-trimmer and mixed your info up with theirs,
the mailman’s wife is a suspicious bitch and he made up a (bad) lie on the spot because she’d never believe the truth,
the mailman passed your slip of paper up the totem-pole and this is a supervisor’s wife or someone else in the building who called,
the mailman LOST the slip of paper, and someone decided to either cold-call or prank-call you to see what they could get from the number.
If it were me, I wouldn’t worry too much about it.
You may want to check with the post office about that certified letter however. Those things are usually important.
To answer a few points, I got the certified letter (in fact, the promised phone call was never made).
I also have caller ID, so I have the phone number of the person who called, just in case. She didn’t offer a last name, and I didn’t give it (even in my groggy state, I knew better than that).
She did ask if the person she was looking for was there, I believe, which may (or may not) eliminate a few possibilities; still, there are plenty left.
Thanks for the thoughts. I may or may not run into the mailman again anytime soon, but that’ll definitely be my first step if I do. More options/thoughts would be appreciated, tho’.
Your assuming you wrote down the number. Could be someone else gave your number out as someone to call for whatever reason, since presumably the mailman isn’t the only person in the world who knows your phone number. Someone might’ve passed your name and number along as someone to call for a character reference, or someone wanted to talk to someone involved in your occupation or a hobby your known for, etc, etc.
Are you male or female? If a woman called my number at 6 am looking for her husband, you know it wouldn’t be about tree-trimming. I have had the opportunity, way in the distant past, to call the number of a woman whose name and number were found in my then-husband’s scraps of paper on his dresser. Unfortunately, he was there…
Perhaps your mailman was missing overnight and his wife decided to check the scraps of paper on HIS dresser, just in case…
If I had to guess, and that is all I’m doing here (with a memory of being the jealous wife of a cheating husband), she found your feminine name and phone number in whatever heap constituted evidence at the time and wondered if that is where her husband was. It may be that they had tree-trimmers that weekend with particularly nice asses, it could be that he was a cheating fool, it could be that he was a brow-beaten faithful husband with a mentally unbalanced wife. Either way, I’d bet money it was a wife with a suspicion.
If it were me I’d call back and ask, but I’m confrontational like that.
Who calls a tree trimmer at 6 in the morning? Who’s open for business at that hour?
Something else prompted that call. I don’t think it’s especially sinister for you, but the jealous wife theory is plausible, or she could have been a little mentally unhinged for one reason or another.
Here’s a funny fact—I used to get calls a few times a year from hysterical women who believed that their husband was at my place fooling around on them. Now, this is when I haven’t even been dating anyone or anything (in a committed relationship). Had my number for 3-4 years. I was forced to think of ‘floating’ phone numbers, how many times did my boys give their number to a friend, and perhaps it ended up on a coffee table with some hysterical woman in the middle of the night, no name on it. These women never knew my name. It was the only logical answer–husband does different types of work and hands someone the number, kids meet a friend, give out the number, eventually falls into silly hands…
I’m gonna go with mentally unhinged jealous wife and a wrong number as well(it IS a wrong number, isn’t it?). Remember, she said your name was on the piece of paper after you said your name.
I’ll take a second here to advocate a hard-line policy against answering the phone at 6am, unless it’s coming from a contact that you recognize. Everybody has a cell phone these days. There is absolutely no need to answer a call from an unknown caller at a rude hour of the day. If it’s important, they’ll leave a message which you can check. More than likely, it’s usually a wrong number or a stray telemarketer.
Remember, she said your name was on the piece of paper after you said your name.