Would you call this guy back?

[MaryAnnDVC]

I once got a message on my answering machine from someone in Ohio (I'm in RI) who thought he was calling his uncle's lawyer, and was asking why, when he visited his uncle's grave, there was no headstone yet. I called him back, just so he'd know that he had left the message at the wrong place, and then he told me THE WHOLE STORY. Oh well...nice guy.

Another time, I got a message from a woman calling for a teenaged kid to do some yardwork for her, so I called her back too; hated to see the kid miss out on a few bucks.

Today, we were left a message for "Gary" by a man offering his condolences on "Paul's" death, and what a shock the news was when his uncle called and told him. He also said that he had tried to call earlier, but apparently it was an old phone number, so he got Gary's new phone number from Gary's mother (apparently, Gary's mother was wrong), and to please call him back so that they can talk.

Would you call him back and let him know, or let him find out on his own? I feel a little awkward getting involved in this one.

(Our new answering machine has a pre-recorded, robotic-sounding generic message; our old one, we recorded that "you have reached the home of xxxx, MaryAnn, xxxx, xxxx, and xxxx...please....")

 

[CherCrazy]

I think I would call back. We got a call wishing us a happy Fourth of July from someone we didn't know. Nice guy I'm sure, but he didn't leave a return number.

 

[Eeyore'sthebest]

I would call back because I would be afraid that the guy would be upset that his friend wasn't calling him back.
That being said, I once phoned a law office back to inform them that they left a message at the wrong number. It sounded serious so I didn't want anyone to get in trouble. But thanks to my being nice, the guy started grilling me. In a very nasty tone of voice I got "What's your name? Do you know someone named blank (can't even remember now)? Where did you last live?" He kept going on firing questions at me. After about a minute I got nasty and said "Listen, I thought I was doing your office a favor. I don't know this person, don't know you, I'm not answering your *** questions." And then I slammed down the phone! I am cautious about returning wrong numbers but yours sounds like it might upset someone on a personal level if the message wasn't returned.

 

[ADisneygirl]

I would have called back. I once had a message from some guy who wanted to tell Jack that his paycheck would not be in the mail and would be available for pick up at such and such a location. I felt really bad for Jack, and the thought of him waiting around the mailbox for his check so I called.

 

[Tigger&Belle]

I would call him back.

Isn't there a way to leave a personal greeting on your answering machine? Ours has a robotic message that will play if we haven't recorded a message or if there is a power outage, but we can record a personal message.

 

[Ready to go in Ok]

I agree with everyone that I would probably call him and let him know.

A few years ago I kept getting collect calls from a guy in prison! There was this automated voice thing that would say "This is a collect call from (don't remember the name) correctional facility. The guy thought he was calling his girlfriend. He would say baby please accept. That one I never accepted. I still kind of feel bad about it, but hey, I wasn't paying for a call from prison.

 

[Uncle Remus]

I agree with everyone that I would probably call him and let him know.

A few years ago I kept getting collect calls from a guy in prison! There was this automated voice thing that would say "This is a collect call from (don't remember the name) correctional facility. The guy thought he was calling his girlfriend. He would say baby please accept. That one I never accepted. I still kind of feel bad about it, but hey, I wasn't paying for a call from prison.

SMART

 

[agnes!]

I used to have a 1(800) # for my home office. When I first got it, everything was fine. Then after a year or two, Macy's Credit office got a 1(800) # one digit different from mine.
And then later (*I* still had my same original number, btw) Embry-Riddle's Student Aid office got a number that was one digit away from mine.
And I would several times a year get phone calls for a New Jersey Power company.

Oh yeah, *fun* times.

My message was clearly identified as NOT being Macy's, but people would STILL occasionally leave very detailed messages with account information or payment information, etc. I would call some folks back, because I didn't want them to thnk they had left a message with the actual credit card people.

agnes!

 

[Serena]

I would.

At one point I was getting calls for a woman with my name who just moved to my city on my street. My street is really long. Apparently her husband died and she left her home town very upset.
I was getting mail for her too. I had to explain I wasn't her to the people who called and to the phone company. I opened one bill my mistake. I got it taken care of finally. But they all told me the whole sad story, and just how unbelievable the coincidence was.

 

[schlepsnort]

I would call back.

We also have a personal message on our outgoing message but it doesn't matter. We have people who still leave wrong # messages. This week a dr.'s office called with the blood test results for a patient...um yeahhh..wrong number!
And about once a month we get a very old lady who calls looking for Betty. I've tried to explain that there is no Betty at this number. She doesn't get it. We are about due for her to call any day now!

 

[MushyMushy]

I would in your situation.

Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. There's this elderly woman who's been calling my number for the longest time now, leaving messages like, "Is someone ever going to come and feed Spot today? Helloooooooo!" or "I need my feet warshed, who's coming over?" Every once in a while, I'll pick up when I see her number on caller ID and tell her she dialed wrong, but lately I've just been ignoring the calls.

 

[Aurora63]

I think in your situation, I'd call back.

Once a guy left a message on my cell phone, he was saying goodbye to a woman...sounded like he had wanted to see her before he left for somewhere, but it sounded a little on the nasty side, like he was upset with her for blowing him off and this was a permanent goodbye. I considered calling him back, but decided against it.

 

[pigletz]

I agree with everyone that I would probably call him and let him know.

A few years ago I kept getting collect calls from a guy in prison! There was this automated voice thing that would say "This is a collect call from (don't remember the name) correctional facility. The guy thought he was calling his girlfriend. He would say baby please accept. That one I never accepted. I still kind of feel bad about it, but hey, I wasn't paying for a call from prison.

I had this same problem. I finally had to call the prison to get it straightened out though. The problem was he wouldn't just call once. I would decline the call and then he would call back 5 or 6 times right after that. A couple months would go by and then it would happen again. The first few times I thought about calling the prison but then I would get busy doing something else and would forget about it until the next time he called. I finally looked up the number after the last time because he called back 14 times in a row.

 

[aprilgail2]

I would call and let them know. I got an email once for a woman regarding her upcoming kidney transplant. I figured out who it was since I had gotten other emails for her and I emailed the person back prior to that and they told me the spelling was apriigail and not aprilgail so I forwarded her over the message with my best wishes. We emailed back and forth a few times after htat but I haven't heard form her in a long time and her account is cancelled, I still think about her and hope she is ok!

 

[Poohstyx]

Hi Mare!
I would call back, too.
Send me a PM when you get a chance. I have some info for you.

Hi to "Just Dave" and the kids!!

Poohstyx ~

 

[SplshMtn99]

i would call him back.

 

[barkley]

i'de call back he and the bereved will probably greatly appreciate it.

for about 6 months we kept getting call after call for some senior lady (she must have belonged to EVERY social club in town-elks, moose, reading circle...). if i happened to catch the call i'de inform them it was the wrong number. the only messages i returned that were left on my machine were to her MULTIPLE doctors/medical providers and the pharmacy-i did'nt want her not getting whatever info. they needed to provide (and the pharmacy was very appreciate but petrified when they found she was giving out the wrong number-her md had called in some meds she needed ASAP and when they checked around they found she had given my number to everyone so their only hope was to reach her by mail ).

we did get repeated calls at one point in time for some guy named 'gary'-but his circle of friends only called very late at night when they were drinking (apparantly he was a popular drinking buddy). we'de say 'wrong number' and they would call again and again-finaly i got fed up and said 'dude, don't you know gary's in lock up at the county jail?' and the guy responded 'bummer man-i told him to take care of those warrants'. i assume 'gary' had quite a few warrants known to his friends cuz they did'nt try to reach him again for at least 6 months .

 

[lookingforward]

I would also call him back. When we moved to FL four years ago we got the "Old" number of a very big "deadbeat". I got collection calls for about 2.5 years for this person and teh people who called left some very nasty messages. I would then call them back and have to argue with them to convince them that 1. I was NOT the person in question and 2. I did not know the whereabouts of the person in question. The final straw was when I tried to order from HSN shopping network and my home number was "immediately forwarded to collections". I could not use my home number as an identifier for my orders because this person owed them a lot of money and my number was "rerouted" to collections. NICE!

 

[shortbun]

I would let him know he hadn't reached his old friend.

 

[LadyyRedd]

I've been getting calls for 3.5 years for a person who does not live at this number. The kicker? I've had the number for 6 years! Not sure what number the debt collectors were calling before.

Last year around Thanksgiving, someone kept calling for "Doris" and leaving messages for "Doris" to call her back. But she never left a number and I didn't have my caller ID box connected (well, it had died and I just hadn't gotten a new one). So I couldn't call her back. I felt so bad after she left the last one saying she was really sad that "Doris" hadn't shown up for Thanksgiving Dinner and hadn't even called her!

Kimya