Wrong number!!!

[hornet95]

"Hey, <person calling>! Great to hear from you. Listen, I'm really busy right this second, but if you don't care, meet me downstairs at the nearby Starbucks in 20 minutes. Order my usual. Thanks. Bye."

[BrenDAnn]

I remember checking my voicemail once to find a message for someone else from a medical clinic there. I only hope the person they were trying to reach actually got the message--and no, it didn't have any really personal information in it. Also, I have to note, if I got a text message saying what the one in the OP said, I'd be totally freaked out, mostly because my mother passed away in 2008. I say that in all seriousness, too. Oh and four calls? Someone is a bit slow to figure things out!

[underemployeed]

I hate creditors, I really do. When my mom got a cell phone, she got a number that used to belong to a deadbeat who obviously changed their number to avoid creditors because they would call and harass my mom for not telling them who X was, they couldn't believe that someone in debt would ditch their number so it gets picked up for use by another person.

I started having fun with them, asking "Why your calling my dead victims phone 3 times a day" taking a few twisted scenes out of law an order, eventually they started getting the hit. X was dead beaten to death by a giant penis (actually that is more clock work orange), and the heroin really had nothing to do with it.

[Akasa]

I think I would have gotten the company name and address then gone to the FCC with a complaint. Possibly a lawyer for a cease and desist.

[NorthernZel]

Mr Zel had a similar problem when he got a cellphone - apparently the old owner of the number was of Turkish origin, and had forgot to give his new number to one of his relatives in Turkey. So said relative called several times, and since she didn't speak or understand English it was a problem to explain to her that she had the wrong number...

Luckily the relative solved the problem herself by having another family member (who spoke English) calling Mr Zel, and finally he could explain what the problem was.

[MoonCat]

Weird variation on wrong numbers: We once got a voicemail from some woman in St. Louis telling us to stop calling her number over and over. The thing is, we hadn't. I checked with the phone company to make sure and they confirmed that no one had placed any calls from our number to St. Louis.

My sister wanted me to call the woman and tell her this, but I didn't want to pay for a long distance call to some idiot who couldn't dial correctly. She never called back so everybody was happy.

[Severen13]

Sometimes the only thing people understand is mean.

A few years ago I kept getting calls from a rehab clinic for "Charles". They were automated calls reminding "Charles" of his appointment times so I couldn't tell anyone they had the wrong number. After weeks of this a real live person calls for "Charles" at some ridiculously early hour in the morning. I had just woke up ten minutes earlier, was still a tad bit cranky and fed up with the phone calls. I made it very clear that there was no "Charles" at this number, there never was a "Charles" at this number, and stop calling already! I think I scared the poor woman at the other end of the line.

The calls stopped.

[MickiGa1]

I got 2 calls that stick out. One is when they asked for my Mom a couple of years after she died. I said "Sorry, she is deceased." They actually asked me if I was sure???? I replied back, "God, I hope so. We buried her." Second one said they just spoke to her 2 weeks ago. What? She's been dead for 16 years by then. I told them their bill will be so high this month cause she no longer walked this earth and can I have her new phone number?

[Mytical]

I had one recently sort of like the above. "Is mom there?" So I hand it to my mother, thinking it is one of my many (many) brothers or sisters..only it was a wrong number lol.

[MelodiousBubbles]

For six MONTHS after I first got my cellphone, I had two numbers continuously asking for some guy named Shawn. It was annoying, but I didn't get really nasty until one time when they called me at three in the morning when I had to get up at seven to drive to school (I commuted to college).

I told them that if they didn't stop calling me, I'd find them and use their skullcap as a cereal bowl. That number stopped calling after that.

[Kogarashi]

I said "Sorry, she is deceased." They actually asked me if I was sure???? I replied back, "God, I hope so. We buried her."

I'm sorry, that made me giggle.

[Misanthropical]

For awhile after I got a new cell phone number, there were people who believed I was Renee and just lying about it, not even my voice mail giving my full name could convince them I was NOT Renee.

I had one woman ask me why Renee would give her this number if it wasn't hers. I told her it's probably because Renee doesn't like her and didn't want to talk to someone so stupid they can't figure out Renee no longer had the number.

It came to a head one day when a woman called for Renee and I told her she had the wrong number and she screamed at she most certainly did not. I told her if she would get her head out of her ass she might realize how stupid it is to try to convince a total stranger that she really is Renee and hung up on her. She never called again.

For 6 years after we got our home number we had creditors calling for Jessica. I'm not Jessica and they would not accept the fact that Jessica no longer had the number. I finally explained to them, like I would explain to a 2 year old child, how to do a skip trace and find her new phone number. They finally stopped calling.

[Moon]

The first call I got in this apartment was a debt collector for the previous person to have my number. That was 5 years ago. I STILL get sporadic calls for this lady. I told a couple people (when it's an actual operator and not a recording) that no, she's does not live here, I don't know her, but if she's smart she's filed BK by now since I've been getting calls for her for YEARS. Unfortunately, some of these calls are automated systems that don't have a "remove this number" option. There were a couple calls like that where I had to use my phone company's "block number" feature (landline) to stop.

And I like the loud, annoying sound idea to get rid of persistent wrong numbers. I like this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cVlTeIATBs

[NotMyProblem]

One land line I had was one digit off from a car place. That company accidentally published My number as their business number in the local phone book. I still don't know how I refrained from scheduling repair appointments and offering Extreme discounts....


After getting repeated wrong number calls around 2A for the same person every other day, I came thisclose to responding in a stricken voice "oh, so you hadn't heard," mournful whisper, "he died...."



And then there's that time, on my second day at a new company, with a bill collector attempting to reach a former employee who used to be at my "new" number and what he did after talking to me ... *shudder*

[garnetMoon]

When I got my cellphone about... I think six years back? Anyway, the number had previously belonged to a John, or as I liked to think of him as, John the Trucker (based on the calls I received). I would get at least three calls a day, all rolling to voice message, which I did have my own name on. Now, I got a cell because I was going to college and needed a way to get into contact with my parents if something was happening, so I had it silenced whenever I was in class. Thus why it always went to voice.

I kind of felt bad for John, though, because these were all messages asking him to take some job or another. This lasted for three years and the jobs got progressively more impressive until they started asking him to take up some kind of management position. Mind you, I could never get a live person to tell them "wrong number, try again." On the bright side, when I got a call at a reasonable hour and I actually wasn't in class so I could pick up, the lady was very pleasant when I informed her that John did not have this number anymore. I never got any other calls for him.

However, on a similar vein, my parents' landline is one digit away from the local accounting firm. Around tax season? Oh, I imagine you all can well believe the way that people don't listen to the first words once the phone is picked up. I could always tell when it was someone with the wrong number, because my mother would say "Hello-" and get cut off before she started loudly talking to cut these people off, usually with some version of "this is not [accountant] this is a private residence stop telling me all of your financial details yes I am sure no I don't want your account number kthxbai leave me alone." They'd call back, of course, and the process would start again.