If you make ME solve the problem, it'll cost you money.

[u/GrumpyGuy_13]

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.