When Was the Last Time You Received a Wrong Number Phone Call?

In My Humble Opinion
21

My team at work has an on-call number that rings to the cellphone of whoever is on call each week.

Turns out that if you change the area code you get a nearby county jail. Or rather, if you are trying to reach the county jail and you dial the wrong area code, you get our on-call number.

We’ve gotten quite good at identifying these calls (which come in all the time, typically late on weekends) and politely referring the caller to the correct area code. Most people are thankful and a little sheepish.

22

My brother told me last night about a wrong number call he once got on his answering machine. He was on vacation and had changed his message to say he would be gone for a week and a half.

When he returned he had a message from a frustrated and infuriated woman ranting that he couldn’t be gone for that long because he had her car in his shop and she needed it back and she was going to call the district manager, etc.

Did I mention that my brother does not own a car repair shop?

23

I tell you - I’m living this!! Mine is Jason Couch from GA - who conveniently apparently also ran his business from his home using this number. I can’t tell you the number of calls I’ve had and continue to have nearly a year later looking for this guy – potential clients, friends, debt collectors, etc…

My favorites:
Caller: Is Jason there?
Me: This is not his number any longer. Please correct your information.
Him: Well you’d better let the phone company know! They haven’t updated the phone book! :smack:

Multiple times!!!
Caller: May I speak with Jason Couch?
Me: This is not his number any longer. Please correct your information.
Caller: Well, do you have his number?
Me: No. I moved, got the bad luck to get this number, and people have been calling for months! Please look for the updated information.
Caller: So you’re sure you don’t know where he is?

24

You mean that your local phone company doesn’t issue a new book every time someone moves or changes their number? What kind of backward area are you living in? :rolleyes:

25

We got a message on our machine a few days ago from a guy looking for his probation officer (hint: it was neither of us).

26

I get wrong number calls all the time. Our phone number is just 1 digit off from the local gov’t provided transportation people (MCHRA) and also 1 (different) digit off from the local substance abuse people (PathFinders).

My voicemail clearly states that the phone is for people, not a business of any type…but people don’t listen, so we often have voicemails that say “yeh, uh, I need to talk to someone cuz uh I’m doing meth and uh, whatever.” We also get a lot of “yeh, my doctor’s appointment was moved, so I’m standing on the corner of x & y streets, please pick me up now.” It’s nuts.

The funniest (recent) wrong number call I took was a couple months ago. My husband and I had known a guy who had gotten into some trouble and had given our address as his home address (long story, but it was no big deal) – we thought it had been straightened out and weren’t really worried about it. The phone rang and looking at the caller ID, I noted that it was the Police Department.

me: "hello?’
PD: “uhh”
me: “hello? may I help you?”
PD: “this isn’t PathFinders, is it?”
me: “nope, that number is xxx-xxxx, you dialed xxx-xxyx”
PD: “oh, ok, sorry, you freaked me out answering with the ‘hello’”
me: “yeh, how do you think I felt answering a call from the Gallatin PD?”

We both had a good laugh.

On a related note, once (many, many years ago) I got an obscene phone call that turned out to be really funny. It was your typical “what colour panties are you wearing, I wanna <bleep> you in the <bleep>” kind of call, so I was just going along with it, being a turd – “oh, I don’t wear panties, I find they get in the way of random men <bleeping> me in the <bleep>” The guy started laughing about my responses and we actually ended up having a very nice chat – talked for about an hour, in fact. The poor guy was drunk and horny and figured WTH. He asked me out on a date, but I turned him down – for obvious reasons. He never called again, though.

27

Happens here in the good old US of Jesus, too. But it seems most often to happen with callers of foreign birth. There is really no way I sound like a Hispanic girl named Maria. But the guys calling insist I must be.

Hola!

28

Today, to my cellphone on the bus. Does anyone know an Anna M-something in the 905 GTA region? :confused:

29

I’ve had the same experience as a few people here. The same crackheads (I assume) calling me up every week. The thing is, they’re so fuckig rude and just baffled when they hear my voice.
me: hello?
crackhead: …
me: hello? hello?
crackhead: …marlena?
me: there IS NO marlena here! she wasn’t here the last time you called, either! i’ve had this number for over five years, so either figure out marlena’s real fucking number or learn how to use a fucking phone you inbred idiot!
crackhead:… marlena?

That feels better.

30

I get at least one a week.

My number is 805-my-number. The phone number for the after-hours health clinic at Vandenberg Air Force base is 888-my-number. Vandenberg is geographically within in the 805 area code.

I answer “hello”, and I hear the pause of confusion, and I just say “If you’re trying to reach the clinic, you need to dial area code 888-my-number.” Almost everyone is apologetic and thankful.

I did have some lady leave me a detailed message meant for her doctor, once. You know, on my voice mail that says: “You have reached iamthewalrus(:3=, please leave me a message.” :rolleyes:

31

I got one at work awhile back, from a woman who wanted to make an appointmet for a mammogram.

“(company name)”

“Yes, I’d like to make an appointment?”

“I’m sorry, but we’re a manufacturing facility only. We do not allow visitors.”

“Can I get an appointment for my mammogram?”

“I beg your pardon?!?”

“A mammogram. Isn’t this (medical facility)?”

“No Ma’am. It’s (company name).”

“So you aren’t doing mammograms anymore?”

“Not unless we changed our corporate policy over the weekend.”

32

Come to think of it, I get those seemingly much less frequently than in the past. Maybe people are getting smarter.

33

Apparently, before I recieved my phone number, it belonged to a now-defunct construction company. For years, I got calls from people wanting to hire them, or from salesmen trying to sell them stuff.

Today, my number seems to be one digit off from that of a Hispanic family with a remarkable number of relatives, none of whom speak any English.

34

I don’t think people are getting smarter, I’m thinking that with most modern phones you can type in the number first, see it on the display, and then hit call. That’s what I do with all my phones. So typically the wrong number is corrected before it’s dialed.

I forgot to say the last wrong numbers I got. About a month ago, this woman left two messages in one week on my work phone. An older sounding woman (I would guess her 80s), asking “Gary why won’t you call me back? What’s wrong Gary? This is your mother.” I felt bad about that one too because she didn’t leave a number so I couldn’t let her know that she had the wrong number.

35

Haven’t had any since I switched to a Louisiana number. While my current phone still had a Virginia number, though, I received several wrong number calls for Pat, Patrick, and Patricia. I could never figure out if that was just an odd coincidence, or if people weren’t sure whether their Pat was male or female.

36

TYRONE? My old friend Tyrone!

When we first got married and had a new phone number many early mornings we would get a phone call for Tyrone, usually around 3 am. The person would only ever say “Tyrone dare?”. No, Tyrone isn’t here he’s never been here, you cannot talk to Tyrone at this phone number!!!. “Tyrone dare?”. AAAARRRRGH

Finally my husband just said “Yes, just a minute” and left the phone off the hook. (The caller can’t hang up if the callee doesn’t)

He never called again.

37

My boyfriend got this one:

Female caller: Hey, is Joe there?

BF: No, I’m sorry, you have the wrong number.

FC: WELL, FUCK YOU, BITCH!!!

38

I used to get fax calls on my cellphone all the %^%$# time. I had had a fax forwarding service for a time, but discontinued it, and long, long fax-spam messages were piling up in my inbox. I would eat airtime and battery life every time I checked my voicemail because I would have to listen to each message.

The only way I could have deciphered them was to forward them manually to a fax machine, which I did not have, and read the resulting fax printout. I was reluctant to forward them to my work fax.

If I called the number back, I would get an automated service that spoke really rapidly along the lines of, “WelcomeToPDMMarketingIfYouWantToGetOffOurMailingListPleaseCallTheNumberAtTheTopOfYourFax…”
…the fax that I could not decode.

I ended up changing my cellphone number from 416-xxx-xxxx to 647-xxx-xxxx in the hopes that the new area code would confuse the fax spammers. So far, it’s worked.

39

So it’s the phones that are getting smarter…

40

About a year ago I started getting calls from this lady who spoke what turns out to be Mandarin Chinese (I don’t speak Chinese and don’t have any close personal friends who do either). If I don’t recognize a number (or shows as private), I don’t pick up.

The first week she left a message, apparently asking whoever to call her back. About a week later, she left another ANGRY message for the person. This continued week after week.

I finally mentioned it to a Chinese associate at work who listened to one of the messages, figured out the dialect, and told me how to say “You’ve got the wrong number” in Mandarin.

Next call, I answer, say the magic words, get the equivalent of what seemed like “Oh, okay” in Mandarin, then click.

No calls for a while.

One month later, . . . a message, in Chinese, apparently asking whoever to call her back. And again, after about a week later she left another ANGRY message for the person. This continues week after week.

I’ve forgotten the Mandarin for “You’ve got the wrong number,” my colleague taught me. :smack: