They have a call-screener in there on the days when we do the call-in shows, and any library callers are dealt with by them. That, and we wouldn’t like to sound even stupider on the air.
“I’m calling for Edward or Ruth Wachenfeld?”
“This isn’t their number, this is a new cellphone I just got. Please remove this number from your list.”
“Well, do you know Edward or Ruth?”
:smack:
Repeat ad nauseum
It happened to our house when I was in high school. A lady called every day and I do mean every day often several times for the same man. This was before caller ID and at first it was more baffling than irritating but as the months went on, it showed no signs of stopping. I was finally really rude so she told me she was going to send someone over to kick my ass. Hmm, she not only knew she was calling the number but also knew who I was and where we lived. No one ever showed up but the mind boggles.
I would say: “Tiene el numero equivocado”, instead of “incorrecto”, either one is correct I guess, but equivocado is what everyone says.
“I’m sorry, you can’t talk to Mandy now, she’s in the shower. I’ve gotta go, I’m dripping all over the rug.”
How weird. Could it be the same Mahmoud we kept getting calls for when we lived near Philadelphia? Most of the callers were from Islamabad, as I remember.
My parents’ home phone is one digit off of the reservation line for the Miramar and I booked someone for a stay at 2AM one morning when I was a teen.
And I don’t feel guilty.
“She can’t talk right now, because my dick is in her mouth. I’ll have her call you back when I’m done.”
Mahmoud is a really common name. His last name is the same as the first name of a character on 24 from a few years ago.
My home phone when I was a teenager was one digit off from a popular restuarant. We’d get several calls a week requesting reservations.
My mother called the restaurant once, explaining the situation and demanding a free meal for our troubles. They declined her offer.
Oops.
I wrote about my exeperience with this, here:
My phone was, for some reason, in the roll-over group for the local police station. For example, they had numbers XXX-8000, -8001, -8002, & -8003. I was -8004. If their lines were all busy, I got the call.
The phone company eventually figured it out but it was a bit weird at times.
My home phone number is strikingly close to the number of the local FBI office. For a while, we were getting calls from some loon living in a motel in Kentucky. He seemed to think “the real enemy is here!” or something. He called us several times with the latest evidence for his conspiracy theories. Even when I could get through to him that we were not the FBI, he would ask if I could pass the information on to them. Sure thing!
In the small town I grew up in, there was apparently a local pot dealer named Stephanie. Maybe she engaged in other illicit commerce as well. I’m not sure. Anyway, I guess when Stephanie didn’t want to bother with a client, she employed the old “give 'em the wrong number” ploy. So, she gave them our number, which had the same last four digits, but a different prefix. Why she always gave out the same wrong number is one of the questions that haunts me. So, we went through a period of time when people would call our house at 3:00 am looking for Stephanie. When we informed them that they had the wrong number, they would sometims ask, “Do you know where I can get some pot?” Sorry, pal, can’t help you.
Or you could use the punch line to that old joke: “Just a minute. Hey, cocksucker, it’s for you!”
Actually, earlier this year my sister kept getting pre-recorded messages from a debt-collection company for a “Hakim”, who had apparently made up some number a few months earlier, given it to this company, and then failed to pay whatever it was.
Unfortunately, the number he made up was my sister’s (again, a number she’d had for years). As it was a recording, she couldn’t even just stay on the line and tell the caller “Hey, wrong number! He lied!”.
She eventually caved and called the company on her own dime to tell them that they had a wrong number. It ended up being a pretty long call, but they stopped calling the number.
In my case, the caller is mumbling, or at least has a VERY heavy accent. I’m pretty sure it’s not a prank, because they never leave a message, and generally hang up on me in the middle of “You have a wrong number”.
This morning when he?/she? called I was very tired and said “Look. You’ve called this number several times…” at which point I was hung up on. We’ll see if they call back again.
Mr. SCL and I bought the home he was raised in when his father passed away, and kept the phone number that has been here for around 40 years. The same woman has called at least every other month for 20 of those years asking for Mildred. I guess our number is very close to Mildred’s. It has gotten to be something of a joke - I say “No, ma’am, you have the wrong number” and she says “Oh honey, I’ve done it again! I’m so sorry!”.
Fortunately she never calls late at night.
I’ve been awakend in the middle of the night by someone calling collect from SE Asia looking for a guy who had my number some five years prior. The first time I simply denied the charges; second time I was alert enough to tell the operator the situation.
Come to think of it, I also had people looking for somoene with a name very close to my own who had my number before SE Asian guy.
My wife gets occasional calls on her cell from this pathetic dude trying to get back together with his ex-girlfriend. She’s told him that the number doesn’t belong to that person anymore, and he seems to understand, but then he’ll get drunk at 2:00 am and call the number again. He leaves long, rambling messages: “Uh… I really miss you… uh, I know we haven’t seen each other in a while… uh, somebody told me that you, uh, got married last year… congratulations, I hope you’re doing well… uh… uh… maybe I can come and visit you sometime… I really really miss you… maybe we can get back together, wouldn’t that be great… okay, love you, bye.” It’s hilarious.
This isn’t something I’ve ever been bothered by. On the rare occasions someone wrong-numbers me more than once, the second time I enquire, “What number are you trying to reach?” We can then sort out whether the person has the wrong number in front of them; at that point they usually listen to reason.
When I worked at the local transit corp, I was cursed with the extension number 4505. What this meant is that anyone who dialed a suburban Montreal (area code 450) number beginning with 5 and forgot to dial 9 first got my number. I must have fielded five to ten wrong numbers a day during the whole time I was interning there.
I got a collect call a couple of times from the juvenile detention center. Both times I refused the call.
I know sometimes it’s a scam, but I felt bad, thinking some poor kid is finally scared straight and trying to reach a loved one…only to think they’ve turned their back on him.
Our phone number is close to a local cab company’s. When drunk people call repeatedly at 2 am I have been known to tell them a cab is on its way to get them to stop. It’s especially bad on holiday weekends.
What’s really baffling is when people leave messages on our machine with their address, requesting a cab. Um, the recorded message you got stating our family name and not a cab company was not a hint that you have the wrong number? I really wonder if they are standing out somewhere waiting for their cab to show up.
On the other hand, my husband sometimes accidentally calls a woman who has a number one digit off from his mom’s. She sounds a lot like his mom too, and the funny part is she plays along. He launches into a conversation, and asks her how she is doing and stuff, and she tells him and asks him about himself too. Once he talked to her for like 10 minutes before he realized she was not his mom.