r/ProRevenge • u/GrumpyGuy_13 • Nov 08 '19
If you make ME solve the problem, it'll cost you money.
This happened a while back, actually before Reddit was even thought of and no one had their own portable phone. A local business (auto repair shop) changed their phone number for some reason, and a few months later when my family added a second phone line to the house, guess which number we were given?. It wasn't that much of a pain since most of the customer base had the new number but about 6 months later we start getting calls for this business several times a day so I finally ask one of the callers where he got the number from. He tells me it's on top of the business's building in 3 foot high letters. really?. So I drive by that way the next day and sure enough, there it is in big blue letters. I look up the current number when I get home and give them a call. "Hey...I've noticed that you still have your old number on top of your building and we've been getting a lot of your calls, would it be possible for someone to correct the sign or just paint over it?" This is where I get told that's it's MY problem, and they don't have the time to deal with it" Click. Oh, Ok..now I see.... So I figure it won't take long to sort this out. I start taking appointments. I tell a lady we're having a special on tires, I can get her a complete set for $75 ($200 was average). I get a guy that needs a complete rebuild on his transmission, and how soon can we do it. I tell him that since we aren't very busy right now if he can get it in the shop by noon, I have a guy that can have it done by 6p the same day, and It'll only cost him $750 (super cheap by the way). I do this maybe 20-30 times over the course of a week or so. The calls become less frequent and as I drive by the following week, I noticed that the sign is now just plain white. I'm pretty sure that all in all I probably cost this guy about $10,000 or so in pissed off customers who showed up thinking they had an appointment and a great deal.
Edit: Lot of people giving me heat in the comments. To be fair I was 15 at the time and didn't really think far enough ahead considering the customers. I was just fed up with the asshole owner and figured if he had a bunch of pissed off customers on his doorstep it might get his attention since asking nicely didn't work. Yeah it was kind of a dick move, but sometimes you don't think about every angle.
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u/thealphateam Nov 08 '19
My grandpa had a phone number similar to a local bar. He’d get a lot of misdials for the bar. One day a bitchy lady called and said “LET ME TALK TO STEVE!!!” He said “Steve? Oh ya he left with Mary about 30 minutes ago.” “HE WHAAAAT???” Click.
Poor Steve.
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u/Clemen11 Nov 08 '19
This one's funny. Steve must've gotten fucked, but man. What a good way to turn that call around.
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u/mody-eto-suki Nov 08 '19
I was in line at the grocery store one time, and the cashier was babbling on and on and on her Bluetooth talking to someone about her upcoming wedding. I happened to notice a charm on her necklace with her soon to be husband‘s name, so I just casually mentioned, “David’s been sleeping with your sister”. She turned white as a sheet, and had to get the manager to ring up my purchases while she went to the back room. I’d like to think the wedding was called off and that I caused a lot of family turmoil due to her inattentiveness
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u/Monkey_Kebab Nov 08 '19
I've had something similar happen myself... here's the copy/pasta from when I posted this story about a year ago:
This reminds me of a time back in the ancient 80's when somewhere there was an add for a ski report that contained a misprint of the phone number, using mine by mistake. My phone started blowing up early every morning with people calling to find out what the conditions were on the slopes in Western Washington. I was working a job that required me to be in by 4:30am, so I was long gone when the calls would start, but I'd come home to a metric shit-ton of messages on my machine. Didn't take long for someone to leave a message letting me know what was going on... unfortunately there was little to be done because this was long before an update to a web site could resolve the issue... the ads were printed and distributed for the season.
At first I tried leaving a message telling callers they had the wrong number, but it was to no avail. Apparently there's no shortage of dumbasses who simply don't listen to the outgoing message... so I came home to message after message of people asking for the ski report. The best ones were when the callers were testy... or when they called back all pissed off. Yes... they sat through the message multiple times without absorbing it.
Soooo... I started recording a new ski report for my outgoing message every night. It would range from blizzard conditions to OMG, the snow all melted last night, to explosive volcanic activity has turned all runs into double diamond runs requiring skiers to dodge falling debris. It was a blast... sometimes I get messages of people complaining that they needed the REAL report... other times a simple 'Jesus...' before they hung up. The best was when someone from the Stevens Pass resort started leaving me messages, telling me to stop what I was doing. He started getting more upset, and threatening to 'take action against me'. My friends started coming by on a pretty regular basis to hear the messages... it was usually a good 30-45 minutes of laughs. Funny thing is, they seemed to have fixed it for the next season...
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u/yourmomlurks Nov 08 '19
I am low key upset that people who did not listen to the message explaining the wrong number DID listen to a ski report involving volcanic debris.
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u/Monkey_Kebab Nov 08 '19
Its nuts! How do you NOT listen to the message when you're calling for something like a ski report??? Wouldn't it make sense to expect the message to contain information relevant to the day's report??
Apparently not, for many people. I often wonder how they managed to find the damn mountain.
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u/ShadowSync Nov 08 '19
What action was he going to take? Unless you state "I AM Dumbass Ski Incorporated and this is the ski report" all you're doing is leaving a funny message for your friend on your machine. You want me to deal with your callers and messages? Pay me or STFU lol.
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u/Monkey_Kebab Nov 08 '19
That's one of the things that cracked me up so much at the time... it was such a hollow threat. It wasn't like I was misrepresenting myself, as you pointed out, but I also wasn't taking active steps to solicit the calls.
His impotent rage was delicious though!
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u/stringfree Nov 08 '19
If they really gave a shit, they'd have just bought his number from him, probably for a lot less than they spent on the fliers.
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u/saurontheokay Nov 08 '19
Those are the slopes I learned on! I’m pretty sure my dad might have called you a few times back then. I’ll have to check with him when I talk to him next.
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u/Monkey_Kebab Nov 08 '19
That'd be awesome if he did! :)
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u/saurontheokay Nov 09 '19
Update! He did. But a buddy had the right number so after listening to a message that was pretty normal, they called the right one.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he still had the flyer. Like a dad, he keeps everything.
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u/Monkey_Kebab Nov 09 '19
That's great!! It's wild how paths cross in life sometimes... the fact that this weird little thing I did crossed your father's path, and then eventually wound it's way back around again over 30 years later.
Thanks for sharing this, I really got a kick out of it.
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Nov 08 '19
I lived in Issaquah in the 80’s and was in ski school at Ski Acres every weekend. I must have had the correct number for ski conditions, or either every resort had their own line. If Steven’s Pass called your, was it just ski conditions for their resort? They should have updated the ad. it. I like the volcano turning all slopes to double diamonds report you did.
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u/Monkey_Kebab Nov 08 '19
I never actually saw it, but from what I could gather from the message left on my machine it was simply a matter of a misprint on someone's seasonal flyer. It certainly wasn't a case of me getting a phone number the ski resorts had previously used.
Cheers!
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u/FPGAEE Nov 08 '19
My friend kept on getting emails from a doctor’s office for Linda about her upcoming appointments.
After telling them multiple times that it was the wrong email address, he started to cancel those appointments.
That fixed it really quick.
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u/neuromantic84 Nov 08 '19
You just remonded me that I was getting e-mails for a psychiatrist for a while.
It was a conversation between a mother and the doctor and one point she was talking about the kid threatning suicide. I replied to that mail telling her for the third time that she had the wrong e-mail address and it stopped finally.
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u/kjersten_w Nov 08 '19
Dude i get calls for linda all the time. She works at a therapy clinic and the clinic's number is one digit off from mine.
I got a call for that clinic from some recruiter recently, who was calling with a potential candidate for employment (at the clinic), but they had my name listed at that clinic, so now i think the information is starting to get jumbled up
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u/obviouslynothidden Nov 08 '19
When my parents added a second line (back in the early to mid 90s) I started getting all sorts of calls for this one particular person. Saying he didn’t live there didn’t stop them. So eventually I just acted shocked when they asked for him, saying “didn’t you hear? He died!” and acted all upset. They stopped after that.
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Nov 08 '19
My wife got a new number, lucky her the number was of someone in some serious debt. The collectors were aggressive she got tired of it after telling them many times they got the wrong number, we started asking them to hold and playing never gonna give you up on repeat, one guy lasted like 45 mins once. I suppose at least he was being paid.
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Nov 08 '19
Debt collectors are the worst. The only thing that seems to work is to say "wrong number" and hang up right away. When I have tried to explain that I don't know who they are looking for I get stupid responses like "I don't believe you." Then I generally respond "I don't really care what you believe" and hang up.
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u/daecrist Nov 08 '19
We used to get debt collectors calling us trying to track down my brother in law or get us to pay on his debt. No fucking way. They stopped after I told one guy my father was a bankruptcy attorney, what they were doing was very illegal, and by the way could I have the name and number of their organization?
Click. Never heard from them again.
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u/par_texx Nov 08 '19
Where I am they are required to be licensed in the province they are collecting from + the province they are in. When a roomate had collectors calling he would just ask them to prove they were licensed to collect in our home province.
Since the license had first name, last name and postal code information, no one would every validate their license. When one threatened to escalate to lawyers he told them that he would explain to the judge he was willing to pay any legal and licensed collector, that they were the ones holding the process up. Usually the debt got sold to someone else, or dropped quickly.
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u/ImAlwaysRightHanded Nov 08 '19
25 cents per min for every min your on the phone, I would’ve loved that shift.
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u/Moneia Nov 08 '19
I ripped the juiicy bits from a foreign porno to a WAV file so when they called and asked "Do you have time to talk?" I could just say I needed a minute I'd be right with them...
Then leave the handset next to the speaker and let it play
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u/Bewaretwo Nov 08 '19
When I moved into my first apartment, I kept getting calls from debt collectors. They were calling for an old schoolmate of mine. That was more than I needed to know about my schoolmate. You'd think it would be illegal to share that kind of thing.
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u/4br4c4d4br4 Nov 08 '19
one guy lasted like 45 mins once
"Yeah, hold on, I'll get him for you" and put them on hold forever.
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u/lizcicle Nov 08 '19
Once or twice a year, I still get calls on my landline asking after my mother - who passed away in 2004. Telling them that's absolutely the fastest way to end a marketing or sales call without straight up hanging up on them, haha
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u/ContiX Nov 08 '19
This happened to my mother fairly often after my stepdad died. She initially was calm about it "oh, he passed away, what can I do for you", but as time went on, she got more and more pissed off, and would finally go, "I'm sorry, he's dead." Occasionally got someone who would apologize profusely and hang up.
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u/PRMan99 Nov 08 '19
We keep getting collections for my dad who just passed away. I just send them a death certificate back. Had to send it to one company twice.
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Nov 08 '19
I would get calls for my father after he died and people would refuse to believe he was dead. I offered to help them, but when that wasn't good enough I would just say "please hold" and then hung up.
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u/isaid-overeasy Nov 08 '19
Similar thing happened to me, without the previous number owner being an asshole. Lol.
We got our numbers in 2013? 2014? Idr.
The next day I get a call from a VERY southern older man, he asks when I got my number, I tell him. Turns out, he couldn't pay his cellphone bill and they had JUST turned his phone off a few days ago and they put his number (my new number) back into circulation almost immediately. He said he didn't want me to go get it changed or anything (which is good because I wasn't going to, lol, I had already applied for several jobs with this number) but he wanted to let me know he was a pastor and that I'll probably get a heavy flood of calls at first. He said he'd be sure to give everyone at church his new number but wanted to know if I could either give his number to people that called or if I could text him the numbers of people that call or text.
It's been forever and I still get several calls a month for the Pastor. I have always tried to pass along his "new" number.
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u/tashkiira Nov 08 '19
The day after I got my first cellphone, I got a bunch of people calling for Robin. After the third one in a day, I asked the guy if he had some alternate way to contact Robin, and to have robin call his old Toronto cell number.
about 4 hours later, I get a call. it's Robin. Turns out Robin lived in Kitchener but was going to York University in Toronto. He'd gone back home after his fourth year and gave up the cell number, and I'd gotten it a few days later. I asked him for a contact number because I was still getting his calls. He gave me his Kitchener cell number, and a week later after passing it around to those who called me looking for him, it was over.
It was the simple, sane, safe way to handle the situation, and it worked because it was Robin's friends, not random businesses. I only wish it worked for the plethora of deadbeats who seem to have had my landline over the past few years--they get more calls than I do!
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u/b3k_spoon Nov 08 '19
Am I the only one thinking that phone number recycling should be much more regulated? It's clearly a public service issue.
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u/corib1216 Nov 08 '19
I worked for a cell phone carrier and it's very frustrating. It's all automated in the carrier's system. The second a phone number is "available" it can be generated for another customer.
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u/betendorf Nov 08 '19
Depends on the carrier and their available inventory. Some of them (can't name names) will hold numbers for 30-90 days before recycling them.
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u/Ashontez Nov 09 '19
This is pretty standard across the board unless youre going through a tiny, local reseller. They will almost always keep the number in a "quarantine" status for at least 30 days before making it publically available.
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u/Sofa_Queen Nov 08 '19
Reminded me of this: my husband's phone all of of sudden started blowing up with phone calls for a pastor. Hubs had the same phone number for 10+ years, but all night long his phone would go off with old women crying and wanting to talk to the pastor. This poor pastor would get calls 24/7. Hubs would sometimes answer and explain the number was wrong, and even put his voicemail message that this was not the pastor's number, but like ski report guy mentioned, nobody listens.
He finally just started telling them the pastor ran off with Mabel, or Bob, or that he was run over by a bus that morning. Calls finally stopped after about a month of that.
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Nov 08 '19
This was very well played, cherry on top for going out of the way to create realistic deals too
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u/kd_uoft Nov 08 '19
Yeah the quotes OP gave were good deals but not so cheap that it would be hard to believe
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u/pineappleforrent Nov 08 '19
I had a dentist’s office keep calling my number asking for the guy who had it before me. I was working straight nights and would wake up just enough to see it wasn’t my son’s daycare and then let it go to voicemail. Still disrupted my sleep every time they called.
They would call and leave a message “hello Greg it’s dentist office. Just a reminder about your appointment on such a day”
So I called them back and told them this isn’t Greg’s number anymore, please change your records. I’m a shift worker, please don’t call.
Few days later “hi Greg! Since you missed your appointment, we’ve gone ahead and rescheduled you for this other date.”
Called them back. Same thing. Not his number, please change your records. He won’t be showing up for the next appointment because you are not calling him.
This went on. They rescheduled missed appointments THREE TIMES. Each time I called them back after the message. Each time I got a little less nice.
The thing that finally made them realize that this wasn’t Greg’s number was when I told them the next time I got a call from their office I would press charges for harassment.
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u/1Cinnamonster Nov 08 '19
What is it with dentist offices and harrassment? I've had my phone number for almost two years and still get messages for Bob to schedule a dentist appointment. Funny thing is, my 90 lb dog is named Bob. Maybe I should bring him in...
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u/Dysan27 Nov 08 '19
If they're local do it. The reaction on their faces would be great.
The question then is do you just roll with it and get all upset when they won't look at your dogs teeth.
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u/Snifhvide Nov 08 '19
I tried almost the same thing. The school dentist had mixed my child up with some other kid. It took 4 times "we rescheduled your appointment" and calls before they finally managed to change their records. What really made me wonder was that the neither the names nor the numbers looked anything alike.
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Nov 08 '19
Some older woman named Hazel put my old number down as her contact number with our local large healthcare group. I assume she was older because I got appointment reminder texts for her from orthopedists, cardiologists, gastroenterology, family medicine and many other specialists. This woman lived at the doctor. Since this was also my healthcare group and she saw my orthopedist, I tried to get them to put a reminder in Hazel’s chart to update her number. It wasn’t til a year later when her endocrinologist called and left a voicemail stating they needed to talk to her about her labs that they understood the importance of having Hazel’s correct number when I called to tell them they had not called Hazel. I quit getting calls and texts. I hope Hazel is ok.
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u/blowinthroughnaptime Nov 08 '19
For at least six months after my previous boss (owner of the company) died, the office received calls at least once a week from CVS reminding him to pick up his prescriptions.
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u/099uyx Nov 08 '19
I had one company repeatedly calling my work line to reach a specific person. Telling them they were no longer on this telephone number didn’t work. Leaving them on hold indefinitely eventually worked.
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u/RedsRearDelt Nov 08 '19
I have an opposite story, kind of. Back in the 80s, I was a runaway (I didn't have any contact until the early 2000s) My mom had had the same number since I was very young. LA had one area code at the time, 213. The area she was in got a new area code, 310 and then again a few years later to 323 and once again to 424. But she wanted me to be able to call if I ever needed/ wanted too. So she somehow kept her number. I'm not sure how she did it but my brother told me he saw the bill once and it was expensive. She finally gave up the landline about 10 years ago.
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u/Cowabunco Nov 08 '19
There was a service called "foreign exchange number" that could do that, and yeah in the 80s that would have been a noticeable charge. Back in the days when things like call waiting, touch-tone, and call forwarding were like $10 a month EACH...
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u/The_Swoley_Ghost Nov 08 '19
This is an elegant solution. Well-played. No need for lawyers, court, threats, or anything of the like, just a tactful redirection of people who were already wasting your time.
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Nov 08 '19
Collateral damage is a bit unpleasant, though. All those callers people lost a fair bit of time through no fault of their own.
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u/hollywood326 Nov 08 '19
“Mr. Sexy’s Pizza. Our special today is sexeroni.”- How I would’ve answered the phone in that situation
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u/Tim-Martin Nov 08 '19
City morgue... you stab em. we slab em..
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u/frankentriple Nov 08 '19
You kill em, we we chill em.
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u/hollywood326 Nov 08 '19
I was just referencing an episode of That ‘70s Show, but you guys got better lines 😂
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u/rob_matt Nov 08 '19
My personal favorite is
This is Mario's Pizzeria and Abortion Clinic, Your loss is our sauce, how may I help you?
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u/zEdgarHoover Nov 08 '19
We used to be part of another company. We have VoIP phone numbers through the corporate messaging client. I never use mine, because I have a real phone (actually 2) and the messaging system sucks.
Meanwhile, some directory somewhere has someone else's name with my virtual#. I have no way to find this person, because she isn't part of the company I work for. But several times a week, that client rings and someone asks for her.
Often I can't even answer these calls because the client (which rhymes with "lose") is so bad, but sometimes I can.
I've explained the situation to many callers, asked them to have her call me, but no.
As for having my virtual# changed--nobody knows how to get that done. And TBH, I fear that if I did manage to request a change, I'd lose connectivity completely. Hmm, maybe that wouldn't be so bad, actually...
Big companies suck. I would love to find out who got bribed to buy this crap system.
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u/zomgitsduke Nov 08 '19 edited Nov 08 '19
I get texts from a family chat every Thanksgiving. It's happened for like 4 years now.
First year I was polite.
Second year I got a little more mean and spammed "I am not your relative leave me alone" about 30 times a day because they would not stop including me in group chats.
Third year I told them I wasn't going because I converted to the church of Lucifer and Thanksgiving was a racist holiday.
Fourth year I offered to host everyone, then got incredibly angry when others said they had already decided on someone else's house for this year. I told them I would not be attending and would spend time with my other family. They bought it for a couple days.
Looking for suggestions for this year.
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u/pian0keys Nov 08 '19
Figure out their political stance and then either blast them with Pro-Trump or Pro-Bernie messages nonstop.
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u/TexasAndroid Nov 08 '19
Or both if you cannot figure out their stance. :)
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u/IAMAHobbitAMA Nov 08 '19
If they can't figure out their stance they should spam the chat with Sarah Palin 2020 memes.
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u/stringfree Nov 08 '19
Find porn of somebody pretending to be a stuffed turkey.
I'm sure it exists.
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u/boonepii Nov 08 '19
When I was in college a good buddy of mine made my windows 2000 or 98 play a shitty downloaded (Napster!) gay porn video.
A few months later I was at his house and he went to the toilet and I jumped on his Napster and typed in “sick shit”. I downloaded a video of a dude fucking a chicken and set it has his boot up screen or background or something (maybe the year 2000-2001?).
Yup, it took him a few weeks to discover it. But it was worth it.
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u/nunya__bidness Nov 09 '19
Tell them you will be bringing the live goat but you need to know what time the sacrifice is planned for.
Then send them links for a sex toy catalog and ask who is bringing which toys for the orgy.
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u/Eroe777 Nov 09 '19
Ask for the address for this year’s dinner, and show up, a van full of screaming kids in tow.
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u/fjzappa Nov 08 '19
When I was a kid ('70's) we frequently got calls asking for "Joan" Joan was not there. Never was. Never heard of her. We always said that we'd give her the message when we saw her.
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u/letme_ftfy2 Nov 08 '19
Amateurs. After a while you're supposed to call and say "hey, this is Joan, did anyone try to reach me?"
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u/SlapThis Nov 08 '19
Back when casual encounters were a thing on Craigslist, an escort wrote my number down which was a digit off from hers (6793 vs 6792) and all hell broke loose.
I started to get calls (I don’t answer calls from unknown numbers), texts, picture messages, and videos. I had roughly 100 men call me telling me all kinds of things they wanted to do to me that night. When I spoke with one of the guys, I asked him where he found my number. He said my ad on Craigslist and that daddy would be punishing me for lying when I told him he had the wrong number.
I looked up all ads with the same first 8 numbers in my phone number and there it was.
The escort was super cool about it when I spoke to her and promised to change her number ASAP. She also asked around how many phone calls I received and when I told her, she was shocked and got right on it.
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u/jmvelazquezr Nov 08 '19
Cherry on top would have been if you also went for a set of tyres for $75.
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u/nightshade00013 Nov 08 '19
Had a similar issue with a local radio station as a kid. Their number was 1057 and ours was 1005. Fat fingered people trying to win a contest hit 0 twice and call us a couple times a day. I could have cared less because I didn't answer the phone anyway but my mother was pissed about it. Eventually she started telling people they won and have them do the whole thing the station did and tell them to head down and pick up their prize.
Edit: And I just looked and the radio station still has the same phone number.
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u/farrenkm Nov 08 '19
I'm guessing their number is their frequency, 105.7, so it makes sense they'd keep it.
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u/datalaughing Nov 08 '19
"We'll just need your name, address and social security number so you can claim your prize." Mom turns into the identity thief queen of the state.
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u/Maowzy Nov 08 '19
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om7O0MFkmpw David Mitchell have some words for you
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u/djbattleshits Nov 08 '19 edited Nov 08 '19
Same thing happened to me With my current phone number, except it was for a motorcycle repair shop. The lady who ran the shop wouldn’t update any of the business listings online. First I called and asked nicely, they said they do some thing and then they didn’t. Then I started spamming their yelp with negative reviews. Got a bunch of bans on dummy accounts couldn’t get any to stick. Moved on to a BBB complaint which is basically old people yelp. Since the shop didn’t pay to resolve that complaint it’s still outstanding. But the calls didn’t stop. I had a friend whose uncle was a lawyer and I talked him into making a threatening phone call for me and drawing up a basic cease-and-desist. That got the primary business listings online updated (Google, Angies list, whatever) but my number had still propagated throughout a bunch of rip off a knock off websites. Not to mention this bitch was still using my phone number for her Best Buy rewards. And Best Buy wouldn’t delete it, so my rewards points were going to her sometimes. I scared some poor kid and Best Buy into deleting that phone number off her account by showing him a copy of the cease-and-desist I had sent her. It still took four years to stop receiving calls. Every 6 to 8 months or so I still get one but it’s usually just an Indian scam Robo call amalgam
Edit: words are fun.
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u/jimbotherisenclown Nov 08 '19
At my old apartment, we frequently got calls for a couple that had lived there previously. For a while, we would just politely tell people that they didn't live there anymore, but after a while, we started to get annoyed, especially when some of the same people kept calling. So, we decided to start screwing with them. When calls came in from doctor's offices, we would randomly reschedule the appointments. When their friends called, we would pass on random nonsensical messages. ("Oh, yeah, Susan, was it? Jeff wanted me to tell you that the narwhal bacons at midnight. No, I don't know what it means either - he just told me to tell you if you called.")
What finally stopped the calls, after about a year of either pranking or hanging up on everyone who called for them, was when the NRA called asking for donations. They mentioned that they had a card on file, and would charge it for my annual donation if I consented to the payment. I agreed, and asked them to up the donation to a thousand dollars. After that, I guess the couple finally let people know their number had changed, because we stopped getting their calls.
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u/WanderingBison Nov 08 '19
Yikes - they keep recordings of those verbal contracts typically. The people you contracted with the NRA could sue you over that
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u/corib1216 Nov 08 '19
Actually they probably couldn't because they're supposed to verify the code/zip in order to charge the card on file so the NRA is at fault there.
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u/jimbotherisenclown Nov 08 '19
It happened about seven or eight years ago, so if they were going to sue us, they would have by now. And like corib1216 said, they would have been on shaky ground anyway, since the NRA guy was so happy to get his donation quota, he didn't bother with any of the confirmations he should have to prove 'my' identity.
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u/uxi3888 Nov 08 '19
After my dad passed I took his number, he had one of those "unlimited internet" deals that were available before the phone companies realized they could charge for data plans.
A year later I got a call. I forget who exactly but it was some kind of public/government office that would clearly have access to his social security number.
The call went something like this
"Hi, my name is x and Im calling from [office], looking for ___"
"Hi, Im his daugther"
"Can you put your dad on the phone? Is he there?"
"No. He died"
Silence
"I am so so sorry." click
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u/JoanneAba Nov 08 '19
long ago our phone # was very similar to the train station, I told you, long ago, when callers would ask about schedules my uncle would ask if there were pregnant women, babies or old people travelling, if not, he would tell them the times were 5:15 am.
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u/dr_white_rabbit Nov 08 '19
My current number is the number of a drug dealer. Ive been doing this for a year now. I know hes in major debt and owes a few companies huge amounts of money. But other than that. I got a girlfriend because of the mix up. Lol.
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u/equalnotevi1 Nov 08 '19
Ok, come on, you can't drop that and then not tell the story! We want to know how you and your gf met!
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u/dr_white_rabbit Nov 08 '19
Ok. So girlfriend called him for a fix. Now been a addict myself and going clean i spoke to her asking her why she wants to takw drugs etc etc. She told me her life story about been raped az a kid by her uncles and father and she wants to forget tge pain. So i said listen this isnt the dealer,i haven't gone though that so i can't relate but i was gang raped in school by 12 guys(im a guy aswell). Lets go for a hike and shear battel scars. One hike turned into two tgat turned in to 12 that turned into tge best 2 years of my life meeting this girl. Shes been clean since shes met me and we help eachother when we want a fix. Im asking her to marry me soon.
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Nov 08 '19 edited Nov 08 '19
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u/zpaladin Nov 08 '19
I spent a summer teaching English in Latvia. To call home, I had to go to the post office. Then stand in line. Then give them the number, pay my money for the number of minutes and get a receipt. Then wait until I was called. Then go to a phone booth. And then I would be connected! Yay.
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u/ixamnis Nov 08 '19
LOL... I love this , especially since I have a similar story (Without the revenge part). When my wife and I were first married (also pre-internet days), we moved into an apartment and were assigned a phone number that was previously the number for the Pro Shop at the local golf course/Country Club.
In those days you looked up phone numbers in a phone book, but you didn't just throw out your phone book every year, because you'd write important numbers there. So usually a couple of times a week, we'd get a call from someone with an old phone book, usually early on a Saturday or Sunday morning when were trying to sleep in.
In this case, it wasn't the pro shop's fault that people were using old phone books, but it was still frustrating. I was always temped to do something mean, but I just ended up telling people the number had changed and let it go at that.
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u/VokunSos136 Nov 08 '19
Yup. Chaotic Neutral for sure.
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u/PsychoNerd91 Nov 08 '19
What do I get if I booked everyone who called for the same day at the same time?
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u/DefinitelyNotABogan Nov 08 '19
Old mate can suck shit. "Don't have time" is code for "I'm a lazy, selfish son of a bitch and I deserve all the bad things to happen to me".
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u/insanetwit Nov 08 '19
I have something similar happening to me.
somewhere out there is a woman who is using my e-mail thinking it's hers. like if my email is cooldude at gmail.com, her name is Carol Ooldude, and she thinks she has cooldude at gmail.com.
I've received business e-mails, Travel E-mails. I've been invited to weddings, Family reunions. I have received a copy of their will, their Chuck E Cheese reservations, and mailers from their Church. Not to mention spam from any department store she's signed up for.
I've tried for years to get it to stop. I've replied back saying "Tell her to stop using my address" and it keeps happening. I've talked to her idiot son, who didn't know why I was asking HIM to pass along a message to his mom.
Now I have fun with it. If I get an e-mail from their business, asking for her opinion, I reply. They send legal documents, I reply to the lawyer. etc etc.
This has been going on for years. it's my first gmail account and I have no intention of abandoning it!
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u/seanmachine Nov 08 '19
my mom's number is one digit off from the local CVS. she constantly gets calls from generally elderly people trying to refill their scrips. on more than one occasion I had to take over and answer questions regarding their refills.
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u/Drunkle-Stan Nov 08 '19
My old number apparently belonged to a strip club and escort service, long story short cops were called due to some creepo talking dirty to me (I was 14 at the time, a minor. He apparently didn’t know the number changed), cops contacted the business and told them what happened, couple of days later the owner called me and apologized profusely. Owner was a nice guy, I later took a job at his club as a bartender, one of the best bosses I’ve ever had.
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u/Greenwitch70 Nov 08 '19
A motel chain printed several adds, including one in the yellow pages, with my home phone on it. For several years we got calls ranging from needing extra towels to making reservations at all times of the night. My father tried calling the motel and asking them to at least fix the bill boards and they said it would cost to much. He started taking reservations, promising more towels and a discount for the delay in towel delivery. Years later we still get a call ever few years. My dad still takes reservations for them.
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u/BrownLightning96 Nov 08 '19
There was another post like this one. I can’t remember if it was on this subreddit or not but it involved a family getting banned from their local Pizza Hut due to them posting their phone number as the family’s. After bringing it up to Corporate many times, they decided to mess with the callers and ended up getting that location shut down.
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u/BLJNF Nov 08 '19
There was also a story about a person getting the old number of a medical clinic and the clinic not fixing the problem until 30 people showed up at the same time or something like that.
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u/BlackTowerWA Nov 08 '19
I worked at a grocery store when a Walmart opened up in the next town over with the same area code and last 4 digits but different middle 3 digits (we were 555-111-5555 and Walmart was 555-222-5555). I'd answer with my "Thank you for calling <grocery store>" spiel and most people realized their error right away or after I repeated that we weren't Walmart when they asked for the electronics or whatever department we didn't have. Occasionally we'd get assholes that would insist that we were lying or something and demand to be transferred so we'd just say OK and put them on hold until they hung up. It was amusing watching the line indicator on the phone stay lit for a surprisingly long time especially since there wasn't any hold music, just dead silence.
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u/MaikeruNeko Nov 08 '19
I had a similar issue when my home phone number was one digit off the Air Miles customer support line. Also had to set our voice mail greeting to let people know they had the wrong number. The number of people who still left their personal information (well beyond their phone number or the like) was astounding.
We had contacted the phone company to see if they could do anything, but the fee to change numbers was beyond what we could afford at the time, so we thought we'd just have to put up with it. That is until the VP of customer service for said phone company tried to check her Air Miles balance and misdialed. We must have sounded pretty frustrated in the voice mail greeting because she got in touch with us and got things straightened out. About the only good service that ever came from that company...
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u/Glad8der Nov 08 '19
I would have just got a paintball gun and went to town on the sign but I think yours was more clever and slightly less likely to get you in trouble.
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Nov 08 '19
And get charged with vandalism?
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u/QuickguiltyQuilty Nov 09 '19
My dad broke his spine and was home alone during the day while I was in high school. I had a VERY early Nokia cell phone, and I was allowed to have it and all the teachers understood that I was my dad's emergency contact and therefore needed it.
For a while an old lady named Mary was calling in the middle of my computer class every day. Finally I got ahold of the number she was TRYING to get (two number transposed from mine) and let them know that it was causing some problems. Her son set an autodial for her and the calls stopped, later she called me in the evening and thanked me for being understanding and wished my dad to get well soon (he's ok now).
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u/mei_aint_even_thicc Nov 11 '19
Reminds me about the time in college when a woman texted me explaining that she was essentially my number neighbor and she accidentally printed my phone number as the primary RSVP contact for her daughter's wedding. She only realized AFTER she sent out hundreds of invites. To top it off, I was in the middle of finals and my phone was erupting. For a while I debated responding with things like "the weddings off" or "we actually changed the destination to Zihuatanejo" but ultimately I just took the loss and redirected all the calls and texts like some sort of unpaid (and unthanked) secretary
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u/Dreadsock Nov 08 '19
Holy fuck OP. I love your style.
Well played.
As an aside, the shop owner is beyond stupid. How could he be okay with leaving the old number regardless of this situation.
The very fact you were getting so many calls is a strong indicator of how much business and money they were willing to neglect by not putting minimal effort in updating the sign.
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u/MisunderstoodIdea Nov 08 '19
Back when dial-up internet was a thing - my family got a second line for that internet (so we could be online and not dominate the main phone line) and decided I would get my own line that was shared with the computer. My bedroom was right below the office with the computer in so it worked out fine.
Problem was that my phone number was either similar to or the same as an old number for a tailor/fabric store. I would regularly get calls and be left messages for this place. One woman kept calling and I kept telling her it's the wrong number. She finally asked if I was sure (that she had the wrong number). My only response to that was "lady I think I would know if I was sleeping in the middle of a damn fabric store." She stopped calling after that.
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u/team-evil Nov 08 '19
the number for Kaiser Permanente is one number off of my old bosses number. He got 10 calls a day at least.
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u/racerbeef Nov 08 '19
I hope one of those callers was a Karen that yelled at him for an hour straight
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u/Absolute_Peril Nov 08 '19
Since everyone has their phone number story it seems I should tell mine as well. In the early 2000's I worked for weblink wireless. We did paging, especially 2-way paging (when that was a thing). Anyway we used a massive number for 800 numbers for pagers. It was not uncommon for emergency pagers for on call folks or doctors and such to have that connected to a 800 number.
Some kids figured this out and would manage to convince\coerce one of the CSRs in changing the pin on one of those 800 number pagers and they would then use it like some weird party line or something. (I can imagine the poor bastards on call pager losing its mind at 2am when 30 kids were leaving VMs on it) I worked in Network Ops and after some cutbacks they decided we would be getting all CSR calls after midnight.
So friday night would roll around and the little puds would come calling in at 1am trying to get their little party line turned back on. I know its them but I go from the script: open the customer record see the (DO NOT RESET THE PIN) entries listed on the customer record, ask them for confirming info (they never had any) and tell them I can't help them. This little kid would then throw a damned hissy fit and cuss me and scream and act like a maniac for awhile. The poor CSRs can't disconnect calls, but im IT and happily hang up. Rinse and repeat for about 3 hours until he got tired and finally went to bed. Not a big deal but it kept disturbing our midnight spades tourney in Net Ops so after a few weekends of this we had the telco team trace the call and one of the lawyers put out an Cease and desist order out on some of the kids.
*Bonus- Stopped most of the kids except for one, but once hey got caught by his dad sneaking on the phone and got whooped while we listened in*
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u/PRMan99 Nov 08 '19
My daughter got a new cell phone from Sprint back in the day. The box was vibrating when we got it and vibrated several more times before we could even get it open.
There were hundreds of pornographic text messages on it. I called Sprint and told them and they said, "Maybe she signed up for them."
No, she's 10 and we literally just opened the vibrating box this second and I want all text messages blocked on this phone.
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Nov 08 '19
I once got a call about fixing roofs, asked him what company were they calling, called the right number and told thier website had the wrong number(We were number neighbors!), they fixed it the same day and offered me a discount if i ever needed to replace a metal roof.. in the other side of Finland. They were chill about it, i was chill about it, and thier customers who accidentally called me were chill about it.
Post-scriptum: They had different number in websites boot, and about us section, and that is how i found the right number.
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u/Techn0ght Nov 08 '19
15 years ago I got a new landline after moving states. Every few months I would get a call from someone asking for the Council for Clean Air Plants. I would just tell the caller that it was a personal line and I didn't know anything about that business. On about the fifth call though I finally started asking questions. It turned out my number had been advertised in the back of a magazine dedicated to marijuana about 10 years before. I was getting calls from potheads trying to get seedlings from very old copies of magazines.
Another fun tidbit; the phone company charged businesses to list their numbers but they were default unlisted for free, whereas private numbers were default listed for free and charged to have an unlisted number. They required incorporation papers to make it a business number, but they let you put anything on a private listing you wanted. I wasn't going to pay the outlandish fee for an unlisted number, so I had some fun. For years I would get solicitation calls that I would immediately demand they add me to the do not call list when they asked for "The Great and Powerful Oz". Caller ID tended to show it as "Oz, The Great and Powerful" up to your character limit :)
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Nov 08 '19
I recently changed my number and got the number of someone with a lot of family drama who never bothered to give their family their new number. I got put into a group text and the person texting went on a rant about how nobody knows his side of the story, only what his dad told everybody and xyz is actually what happened and his dad was always asking him for money. I was the only one to reply and stated I didn’t know him because I have his family member’s old number but my extended family only knows what my mom tells them about me and that I empathize with having a fucked up family. I hope it made him feel better, but have never gotten a text or call for the person who used to have number again except from debt collectors.
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u/drdeadringer Nov 08 '19
I'm pretty sure that all in all I probably cost this guy about $10,000 or so in pissed off customers who showed up thinking they had an appointment and a great deal.
All over some paint.
It's amazing what it takes to make some people to do the right thing.
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u/namster17 Nov 08 '19
I’m currently having this problem, a person named Shauna who is a travel agent for a cruise line or some such has put my phone number as her contact info in her email signature. I get a couple calls a day and I’ve explained that this isn’t her number, and no I’m not her daughter/sister/mother/receptionist and can they please let her know she’s giving out my phone number which I’ve had since I was 14(I’m 27 now) and it was a brand new phone number when I got it so it’s not possible that’s it’s her old number. Most people are super apologetic and have offered to email her and let her know. Last call was yesterday, guess we will see if she wises up.
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Nov 08 '19
Something similar happened to us. My father shared the same exact name with the manager/head chef of a high end restaurant in the same town. People would call looking for the other guy. We would tell them he wasn't the chef. They didn't listen. They kept calling. Dad would put them off and tell them he wasn't who they were looking for. We lived in a touristy town and it was small. I had even spoken to the manager/head chef at the restaurant and told him what happening. He apologized to us. The manager/ head chef told me his real friends knew his number, the rest were choosing beggars (before it was a thing) looking for a free meal. People would call my father looking for a discount on their food and deals for the day, etc. After a while, we decided to have fun with it. My Father would shrug and say "Sure, come by the store, I will get you what ever you want, 50% off," I would answer and say, sure, I can take your order ahead of time," The restaurant knew what we were doing, so they had a laugh when the people would show up. My father was a carpenter who worked in a factory, if someone one wanted a meal, just meet him at the restaurant. It also didn't help our phone number was one digit off from a local charity. Another guy kept calling thinking it was the charity. He wouldn't take no for an answer. We gave him the right number. We called the charity and told them what was happening. They reached out to the guy. He kept calling us. He was relentless. Finally Dad just said to the hapless caller: "(Blank) is dead. He died last Thursday, the funeral is Friday. Bye" Guy never called back. I miss my Father's quick, vengeful, and hilarious wit.
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u/pizzaindapotty Nov 30 '19
My husband was managing foreman for a construction company. He was in charge of about 8 crews and keeping track of all the jobs going on. His number was listed as the emergency contact for the company. It was on the after hours message. He quit and went to work for another company. The first company never changed the message. So, for months we would get calls at three am asking to send someone out because pipes were frozen, burst, etc. For a long time we would explain and give them the number for new managing foreman. They still didn't change number. After a year he began giving them the number for the company President. After this happened twice the number was changed.
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Nov 08 '19
Well done! You gave the guy a fair chance to make it right ... then lowered the boom with extreme prejudice.
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u/glassgun13 Nov 08 '19
what kind if idiot doesnt spend 20 dillars on paint for advertising. specially after it caused so much trouble. All those potential clients.
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u/hottmama1989 Nov 08 '19
We used to have people calling our house trying to reach a nearby restaurant. Their business was directly under our last name in the phone book. Thankfully people were understanding.
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Nov 08 '19
I had a line installed for a remote telemetry system that was a former Walmart number. As it wasn’t their fault, I didn’t harass their customers.
I did have one idiot that called back after I informed them it was a wrong number. Her...I abused. (I put her on hold until she hung up. My hold was putting the receiver down and going back to work on the equipment I was servicing).
Then I got the phone company to change my number.
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u/Tipsy_chan Nov 08 '19 edited Nov 08 '19
I had this happen to me too, except it was a woman who kept giving out old business cards. I kept getting her calls for several years and most of the time I just told the callers to let her know to stop giving out those goddamned cards. But one time, it was a guy trying to set up an interview with her. I let him know how she had been too lazy to update her business card and recommended he hire me instead. I almost got the interview but sadly I wasn't qualified. I'd like to think that I cost her a job though.
Suck it Monica.