It's my phone number!!

[Broomjockey]

I've got a wrong number story that really baked my noodle.

Years ago, one Saturday, I got a phone call. They asked for me by name, and sounded like my friend Matthew, and lo-and-behold, his name WAS Matthew. He asked why I sounded funny, well, I had a bit of a cold. He told me to get dressed (as he knew I was still in my pjs) and we were going out today. I say sounds good.

I get dressed, and wait for him to show up. A half hour later, he calls again, and asks where I am. I tell him I was waiting for him, and he said I was supposed to come there. All of a sudden, we get confused for some reason, and ask for last names.

Turns out, we didn't know each other.

That's right, he called looking for a "Broomjockey", found one, I knew a Matthew that sounded like him, his "Broomjockey" also stayed in pjs until noon on Saturdays, and he managed to dial my number a second time.

I still laugh about it from time to time.

[Cia]

We'd get phone calls for the Box Elder Job Corps, Safeway and another company in town that has our initials.

The people who called for the Box Elder Job Corps didn't believe me when I told them that we weren't them and no I didn't have a co-worker named Glenda Prairie Chicken - being the only female working here I think I would have noticed.

The Safeway lady wouldn't take the hint so the Boss got on the line and yelled "We have no damn specials" and hung up.

The initial people - even the State got them goofed up with us <shakes head>. Anyways they don't list themselves in the phone book with all the other initialed companies, no they list themselves like their name is a word and noone can find them. Except me I had a hunch and I was right. Further clarification say my work is called Big Electrical Contractors then the initialed people would be BEC. They list themselves under Bec and not BEC.

I would like to ask the George School District in George, Iowa why they called and hung up on me 3 times in a row? I know SD only has one area code but come on people.

[BookstoreEscapee]

I'm still waiting for Mr. Right to accidentally get me on a wrong number and fall so madly in love with my beautiful voice that he has to track me down and we live happily ever after...

[JustaCashier]

Protege's "Party Line" post just now reminded me of an incident that happened many years ago.

My phone line has never been a party line, and I'd heard of incidents where "wires get crossed" and someone ends up connecting to a couple other peoples' in progress conversation. I think it may have happened to me on more than one occasion, but the one I remember seemed way weird to me.

It was weird enough that it happened, what made it way weird, was that as I stayed on the line listening for a few seconds, more out of surprise that it happened, than being snoopy, one of the ladies said something like "Would you please hang up? We'll be off the line in a moment!"

She said it in such a way that it was like she wasn't surprised someone else might come on the line. The only thing I can figure is that I had somehow become connected to her party line.

Mike

[Spiffy McMoron]

For some reason, you control your customers.

If we did, want would be the point of this site?

-Spiffy, for whom hope springs eternal...

[tollbaby]

Hehe if you really want to have fun...does anyone remember "party lines?"

We still have party lines up at the farm.... *blush*

[Andara Bledin]

Mike, what happened to you sounds like someone had hijacked a line and was thieving the service.

My company gets mistaken for the Center for Disease Control every so often. Those calls are amusing or disturbing, depending. Of course, it wasn't amusing when the hackers broke into our site, not understanding that the CDC wouldn't have a name like our site's and then, when it wasn't what they wanted, the used our system to launch attacks at the SEC.

It's a little disconcerting to get a phone call from the SEC saying that they traced an attempted hack to our system. But that's ok, 'cause they hacked our system, found that we didn't initiate the attack and that we should really look into securing our website.

Our IT guy got his networking experience out of a for Dummies book, and he only skimmed it.

^-.-^

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Broomjockey, something real similar happened to me, but it was only one call. Guy called me, said "It's Danny." and we started chatting. He sounded like Danny. The conversation went along in such a way that we both thought we knew who each other were. Eventually something got said that tipped us off that it was a wrong number. We had a good laugh over that one. Danny was like, "Well, I enjoyed talking to you anyway!" I just laughed and said "I did too!"

He was Danny, just not the one I was expecting a call from.

[AFpheonix]

Is it possible that he's seeing a phone book misprint, where your business is listed with his number, and therefore your customers are calling him? You actually have two different numbers (obviously) but the listing is wrong.

Even if that's it, he's still barking up the wrong tree and needs to call whoever publishes the phone book.

But then, how would the old guy have gotten the number to the store, if the old man's number was listed next to the business name?
No, you're giving him entirely too much credit.

[greensinestro]

Please! I can relate to this. I've had customers call me for Palm Tran, a transportation company. My phone number is not that close to Palm Tran's, and yet we get calls at least five times or more a week for people wanting to make travel arrangements. We have had them at 2am, 5am, all times of the day.

And, by the way, the telephone number is not actually his number. That number belongs to the phone company as do all other phone numbers. Look it up on the Public Service Commission web site.

[Bonnie Bitch]

I'm still waiting for Mr. Right to accidentally get me on a wrong number and fall so madly in love with my beautiful voice that he has to track me down and we live happily ever after...

OMG!! That reminds me of:

MV = Miss Vera, a delightful former co-worker of mine from XYZTV, age: timeless, also a great-grandmother who took exactly zero crap from anyone
SC = ... guess who!
Small detail: at this call center, the "hang up on a$$hats" button was disabled on all the phones for the XYZTV department. The lovely peeps at XYZTV corporate decided that the evil CSR's they hired had no right nor any reason to ever hang up on any customer

<Miss Vera goes through the call, and at the end....>

SC: Hey, baby, where're you at?
MV: Sir, my name is Miss Vera, and my location is none of your business. Thank you for........
SC: No, baby, you're so fine, I'd like to <insert graphic description of a sexual act here>
MV: Sir, that will be enough. Hang up now.
SC: No, baby -- come meet me at Motel Sleaze. I'll fly you down here to <name of state>
MV: Sir, I am a <delete number> year-old great-grandmother. Besides the fact that you wouldn't last five minutes with me, I will not be talked to in that manner. You will now hang up.
SC: No, baby, I just....

Next thing I see is Miss Vera standing up and physically pulling the phone cord out of the socket behind the computer. She looks at me and says:

MV: Hey, Bonnie, could you tell The Boss that my phone's not working and I'm taking a break? Thanks.

She left, and I followed her to get the scoop.

And the moral of the story:

Careful what you wish for, BSE. I'm just sayin'......

<kiss noise>

Bonnie Bitch

[MadMike]

Hehe if you really want to have fun...does anyone remember "party lines?"

The town I grew up in, and where my dad still lives, is one of those little towns that if you blink while you're driving thru it, you'll miss it. We had party lines there up until the mid to late 80's. Yes, it was weird to go to make a call, and sometimes find people already talking. I remember one time when I was little, trying to listen in and getting busted. The conversation went something like.

"You know what I wish?"
"What?"
"I wish that whoever was listening would hang up."

Another time, someone's shed caught on fire, and my one friend's dad was trying to call the fire department, but the people hogging the line wouldn't give it up until he finally started screaming at them.

Another weird thing about the party lines is that when we made any kind of toll call, and operator would get on the line and ask for our number. I wonder how many times people purposely gave the wrong number to avoid being charged for the call.

[Bluenomi]

A friend of mine's phone number used to be 1 number of a local high school. She would regually get parents ringing in to say their kid was off sick. If she was in a good mood she would tell them they rang the wrong number and give them the right one. If they rang more than once she would just say 'ok' and let them think they had spoken to the school. Evil but funny