Wrong number: How would you handle this?

[ExPirateShopGirl]

Three pages of posts and not one mention of the most beneficial solution of all... answering the call, masquerading as the nephew of the same name and milking money out of the elderly couple.

I'm ashamed of all of you...

 

[barkley]

What was the resolution? I hope you at least got free cable for life!

Anne

they were very stupid about the whole situation. first they were nice but as soon as it became clear i was'nt going to surrender my phone number to them they got nasty. when they were nice i had an ammended message on my answering machine directing people who called to the correct number-when they got nasty i took the message off, deleted any messages that would come in-and when people managed to catch me at home to complain that noone had returned the message they had left i would tell them they were right it WAS lousy customer service and that they should call 'mrs. x' and tell her i said they should get a year of free showtime and hbo (when the cable company was sucking up to me the manager had given me her personal cell number ). somehow the local alternate newspaper (the one the cable company did'nt buy ad space in but was hugely popular) got wind of the situation and did a front page story about big buisness bullying me.

result-lots of calls of support, and ultimately the cable company had to take out a huge ad in both papers to post the right number. they also had to reprint 70 odd thousand channel guides and remail them. i was given a year of free cable but somehow it hiccuped because when i moved several years later i received a refund for a full year's worth beyond the free year i got.

 

[Beth76]

I'm glad you got it settled. Thanks for the update!

 

[UrsulasMyHero]

I used to have a number close to 2 Business numbers The Cable company and the *blanks* I can't remember what it was now. But I'd had my number for 13 years. I would -CONSTANTLY- get calls from this one woman. Every week it seems, telling me that her cable was out. Every time I'd call her back and explain that she had the wrong number. And every time she'd insist that I call the cable company for her. Of course I'd refuse because I knew they'd not do anything for me. Inevitably she'd get mad at me, and hang up, only to call me the following week and complain that her cable was still out.

And apparently one student used my number on their file so that when they were absent their parents wouldn't know. Because I would get calls repeatedly about it. I finally had to call the school and let them know that 1. I didn't have any kids that went to their school and 2. the kid's parent's didn't use that number. and 3. they really needed to contact the parents because that was my 7th call in a row.

 

[barkley]

when an amusement/wildlife park went into my hometown they set up their main number so the last four digits spelled out 'orca' and set up their advertising campaign such to tell people 'just dial xxx-orca'. apparantly people were realy terrible spellers because my friend's parents got tons of calls from people who dialed xxx-orKa. they ended up changing their answering machine such that it told people that they had reached the wrong number and if they wanted the correct number -'go get a dictionary and learn how to spell'

 

[mitushib]

'go get a dictionary and learn how to spell'

LOL

OP Glad ur problem got solved.

 

[geetey]

Glad things worked out for you! I never even thought to consider their speed-dial number might be programmed incorrectly.

I do want to say that we have had someone 'faxing' our phone line at all hours of the day and night. This will go on for 3 days and then wait until the next month. We are guessing that it is a fax machine programmed to dial until delivery is complete so it just keeps calling and calling and calling...

We have called the phone company and they say they can not block just one phone number. We have the phone from the caller id but they say they can't help. I understand your frustration with this, Corwin12!

 

[aprilgail2]

I do want to say that we have had someone 'faxing' our phone line at all hours of the day and night. This will go on for 3 days and then wait until the next month. We are guessing that it is a fax machine programmed to dial until delivery is complete so it just keeps calling and calling and calling...

We have called the phone company and they say they can not block just one phone number. We have the phone from the caller id but they say they can't help. I understand your frustration with this, Corwin12!

I have had that happen too, I got the number from the caller ID and faxed them at that number saying to please check the number they are calling because they keep trying to fax my home number.

 

[mickeysgal]

We have called the phone company and they say they can not block just one phone number. We have the phone from the caller id but they say they can't help. I understand your frustration with this, Corwin12!

This makes no sense to me. Apparently one needs to be harrassed by more than one person/phone number before a phone company will block them for you?

 

[arminnie]

The person who had my phone number before me had a name like George Flintstone. When I first started getting calls for him I thought it was a joke.

I had that number for about 15 years - I would still get one or two calls a year for him.

 

[Whosemom]

I'm glad you got that straightened out - the nephew was probably wondering why he never heard from them!

A bar opened in our area that had a phone number differing from ours only in having a 0 instead of a 6 at the end. Well, write messy and your 0 can look like a 6! For a long time I was getting very cheech-and-chong-like calls at 2am. "Is Joe there, man?" LOL. I don't know why it cracked me up instead of annoying me.

 

[ducklite]

they were very stupid about the whole situation. first they were nice but as soon as it became clear i was'nt going to surrender my phone number to them they got nasty. when they were nice i had an ammended message on my answering machine directing people who called to the correct number-when they got nasty i took the message off, deleted any messages that would come in-and when people managed to catch me at home to complain that noone had returned the message they had left i would tell them they were right it WAS lousy customer service and that they should call 'mrs. x' and tell her i said they should get a year of free showtime and hbo (when the cable company was sucking up to me the manager had given me her personal cell number ). somehow the local alternate newspaper (the one the cable company did'nt buy ad space in but was hugely popular) got wind of the situation and did a front page story about big buisness bullying me.

result-lots of calls of support, and ultimately the cable company had to take out a huge ad in both papers to post the right number. they also had to reprint 70 odd thousand channel guides and remail them. i was given a year of free cable but somehow it hiccuped because when i moved several years later i received a refund for a full year's worth beyond the free year i got.

Good for you for not backing down to them! And I LOVE that you gave out that ladies cell phone. I probably would have put her cell number on my machine!

Anne

 

[Poohnatic]

I used to have a number close to 2 Business numbers The Cable company and the *blanks* I can't remember what it was now. But I'd had my number for 13 years. I would -CONSTANTLY- get calls from this one woman. Every week it seems, telling me that her cable was out. Every time I'd call her back and explain that she had the wrong number. And every time she'd insist that I call the cable company for her. Of course I'd refuse because I knew they'd not do anything for me. Inevitably she'd get mad at me, and hang up, only to call me the following week and complain that her cable was still out.

The business I ran was one digit off from the cable company locally, and boy howdy, we got a lot of phone calls. There I'd be, kitchen full of people and running my tush off and the phone would ring.

It would ALWAYS be someone who didn't take the simple "You dialed 698,you need 694 explanation". They'd question me repeatedly "are you sure?" Yep, we make food at the cable company's kitchen.

Not answering the phone was not an option for most of the day, as the location I ran was new for our company and many of my calls (in the evening, anyway) were for directions to come to their session.

I've told of my Nana before. Our town had 5 phone exchanges and two were close (378 and 379) Personally, I would goof calling friends all the time, so I can relate. However, one of the best pizza parlors in town was 379 and she was 378 with the same last four digits. She'd get dozens of phone calls on the weekends.

Eventually, she's just give them a number and say it'll be 20 minutes. When I found out about that, I felt bad for all those people who'd show up at Vinny's, say their number and get told they didn't have a pizza. I felt worse for the Vinny's employees who inevitably would get cussed out. I suppose that's why I patiently tell people they've got the wrong number instead of being nasty.

Suzanne

 

[agnes!]

I used to have a 1(800) # for business. I had it for a couple of years, no problems...then Macy's Credit Office got a 1(800) # that was ONE digit off of mine.
Also, my number was apparently somewhat similar to Embry-Riddle's Financial Aid Office AND
was somewhat similar to some New Jersey Utilities company(if you dialed 1/800 instead of an area code).

Oh YEAH fun times.

I clearly had an answering message that said I AM NOT MACY"S CREDIT OFFICE, but occasionally folks would leave "I'm paying my bill, here's my account number" etc, etc., types of calls. IF I could understand them, I would try to call them back and tell them they got a wrong number.

When AT&T stopped taking the wrong numbers off my bill(it wasn't anything personal, they did it to all their 1/800 customers), I dropped my 1(800) number.

agnes!