I finally give an SC a piece of my mind.

[Headset Hellion]

I... buh ... WHY would you make a phone call deliberately to the WRONG PLACE? The theater has a phone, this unrelated store has a phone, I think I'll call the second one!

I work in Consumer Banking/Card Services. We handle personal credit cards and personal credit cards only. I process payments, waive fees, transfer funds, review statements/balances, etc.

Every day I get calls from people who can't log-in to their online banking profile. They are sitting at a computer, on our website, where there is a big link that says "Contact Us." If you click that link, there is a very specific number for Technical Support. What number do they call while they are sitting at their computer looking at our homepage? The number on the back of their credit card.

Then they proceed to get pissed when I have to transfer them to Tech Support because, guess what? I don't have access to your log-in ID or password. I don't know why you're locked out and I really don't care. Maybe if you had called the right number in the first place, I wouldn't be "wasting" your time.

[Ironclad Alibi]

I'd be tempted to ask them what movie they were looking for, and give them wrong information. If it's not playing, tell them that it is. If it is, either tell them it's not, or give them a start time an hour after the actual start.

So this is why there are many reports on this forum about SCs saying that some store told them they could get what they want at another store. SCs will never believe the first person lied to them just to get rid of them.

[wolfie]

A former landlady would get wrong-number calls for a pizza place. Instead of telling people they had the wrong number, she'd take their order. Needless to say, the pizza was never ready at the time promised.

[EricKei]

Wolfie - I like the cut of your old landlady's jib ^_^

One of the worst-kept secrets at pizza joints is this, tho: If your number is close enough to that of a local pizza joint's that you get a large number of wrong number calls as a result, the place can be forced to buy the number from you. It normally came about from callers not paying attention, refusing to look up the actual number, calling 867-5308 (or-06) instead of 867-5309, etc -- any pizza joint would KILL to have that number, btw...Hell, if I could get it, I'd raise some capital and open a joint called Jenny's Pizza on the spot ^_^ I cannot see why any rational person (at least in the US) would want it as a home or cell number, tho.

A decade ago, where I was, the going rate was around $3,500...I wanna say that it usually took a Small Claims suit to get that far. My old place, which had been around forever even then, must have had over 20 phone numbers because of this (as opposed to the customary six (one for each line plus a FAX))

[wolfie]

That's probably why so many chains have a central order number, then forward the order to the store in whose territory the customer is. Not just to make it easier for someone to remember the number, but so they only have to buy up one set of "neighbour" numbers, not a set for each store.

What happens in the case of somebody having had the number for YEARS, and a new pizza joint opens up with a "neighbour" number? The person doesn't want to give up a number that all their friends know (especially if they're in an "overlaid" area and they have the original area code, such as a "416" number in Toronto), but they want the wrong number calls STOPPED. Can they force the pizza place to change its number, since they were there first?

[EricKei]

Hrm. That would be something that they'd probably have to take to court unless it was caught pretty much immediately. The issue, is, (wise) places begin putting out fliers, doorhangers, and other ads weeks before they open, with the express purpose of disseminating their phone number. I dunno if it can be FORCED per se in that case, but if the resident had the number for a really long time and can prove that the call volume was enough to be considered harassment (in the legal sense), a good lawyer could probably get a judge to see things her way.

I don't know if there's a way for a joint to check for that sort of thing, although I do know that they do their best to pick a number that is easy to remember/catchy (e.g., ###-334-3434).

As for crunched up area codes...I wonder if this has ever occurred to the phone companies: Their normal rationale for doing this is that the numbers in an area have all been spoken for due to the proliferation of cellphones, FAX machines (many many businesses still use these), et al...Why not just create a new area code that *exactly* overlays an old one, use one for landlines, and one (or more, as needed) for the others? When the coexistence of landlines and cell numbers was still commonplace, I would have loved to have the exact same number (except for the areacode) for my home and cell numbers. Would make it easier for businesses, too, would it not? It would also make it easier to tell where someone is calling you from -- back in ye olde days, getting a pizza order from a cell was almost as suspect as getting one from a pay phone (read: probable prank/fraud)

[blas]

I've been guilty of asking associates stuff about other stores or places in the food court, but all I was looking for were opinions, and if they didn't know, that was fine.

But all those years ago, if it wasn't for the girl suggesting Gloria Jeans, I wouldn't be driving home eyes wide open thrashing my hair all over and freaking out to Culture Club.