On my cell phone, in the past year, I've received 148 calls. I know, not many people call me. But at least 41 of those were people calling the wrong number- and often at inconvenient times (dinner, 12:30am, etc.). All of the callers were different numbers, except those that came from Unavailable or Restricted callers, and those I'm not sure about. This is just the stuff that's still stored on my cell phone's memory.
I've also gotten numerous wrong number text messages- tonight, between 7:03 and 7:09, I got four from the same number, all of which said "Call me". I got another from that number at 7:11 that said "Call me in out side is u coo". I have no idea who these people are, and some of the calls have been downright strange- one asked for Peaches, and when I said I wasn't her, the guy asked "are you sure?" (Well yeah, I'm sure, no one has ever called me Peaches in my life... but someone had called my sister a week before asking for Peaches, too.) In another call, the caller asked for a woman, and I told him he had the wrong number. He kept asking for different names(none of which I knew) until I hung up on him.
My area code at home is 937, so that's my cell phone's area code. My area code for my apartment at school is 740. The only other area code I know is 614, and that's Columbus. Most of the calls are from those area codes, but some of them were strange- 888, a random 800 number, 281, 330, 847, 419, 336, and 703, to name a few.
How often should this happen? I feel like I get these way too often- certainly more than any of my friends do on their cell phones. At what point do I talk to Verizon (my cell carrier) about this? Anyone?
Posted by Hank (Member # 8916) on :
I have Verizon, and I get wrong number calls or texts maybe once or twice a month, tops. Of these, I can't think of any from outside my cell phone area code. It sounds like you have an unusual volume of these.
That said, I'm not sure what Verizon could do about it, since these are all from different numbers.
Posted by Godric (Member # 4587) on :
This does sound like an unusually high number of wrong numbers. My first thought - is your number close to that of a major/popular 800 or chat line number?
Posted by Carrie (Member # 394) on :
Off the top of my head - 847 is Chicagoland somewhere and 336 is NC. I think 703 might be Virginia, but I'm not sure.
If I were getting so many calls, I'd probably look up my number with the random area codes to see if I could figure out what they were. Or, if the problem became too burdensome, change my number altogether.
Posted by Tinros (Member # 8328) on :
My number (the xxx-xxxx part) isn't even remotely linked to any kind of call line- a search on just those numbers turned up some random places in other states(Maryland boat builders, a Marine Corps recruiting station, and a medicare provider, to name some). I tried looking up my number with those random area codes- nothing. A couple of the numbers I googled and got hits on, but they're places I'd have to reason to receive calls from (a Motel 6 in Dayton, and a Pizza Hut in Dayton-I HATE Pizza Hut). Five of them were from the same concentrated area of Dayton- Euclid Avenue, specifically, but all were different numbers and different people in the phone book.
My dad suggested asking Verizon to change my number, and I might. I just wanted to see if this was an unusually large number of calls.
Posted by theCrowsWife (Member # 8302) on :
This reminds me of weird thing that happened with our last cell phone. My husband had had the same number for years with Sprint, and then we ported the number to a different company. Everything worked fine at our end, but apparently Sprint didn't record that the number was transferred, and gave it to someone else. Of course anyone who called that number got us instead. We kept getting calls for a particular guy, and the people insisted that they were calling the right number. We finally figured out what was going on and told the next person to pass it on to the poor guy. Presumably he got it fixed, because we stopped getting calls for him.
--Mel
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
I wouldn't be surprised if the Peaches call was a prank.
Posted by LargeTuna (Member # 10512) on :
Back when I had my first cell phone I would get multiple calls from people I didn't know so I would let it go to voicemail. I got separate calls from different people trying to order or pick up Itallian meatballs. One guy seemed really confused because my answering message is: "hey this is brandon, leave a message". He was desperately trying to get an update about if the meatballs were ready for the wedding and I needed to let him know as soon as possible, and even though it was obvious he wasn't sure if he had the right number, he pursued with the message like most other people did. I have since changed my number and generally only get a wrong number call once every couple months. Depending on how long you've had the number and how much of a pain it would be to let everyone you know about the change, I would just get it changed.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tinros: How often should this happen? I feel like I get these way too often- certainly more than any of my friends do on their cell phones. At what point do I talk to Verizon (my cell carrier) about this? Anyone?
Have you ever speculated that your number may have at one time been employed by a prostitute and printed in those hooker flyers one sees around cities?
Posted by sarcasticmuppet (Member # 5035) on :
I'm convinced that someone uses my phone number as a fake number when guys try to pick her up. I get texts all the time along the lines of "I saw u last nite wats up?". I just ignore them.
Posted by TheBlueShadow (Member # 9718) on :
When I first got my cell number seven years ago I got an apology voice mail from some guy thinking he was calling his (possibly-ex) girlfriend.
I never got another one, but I wondered if she was so upset she had her number changed. Does anyone know how long it takes for a number to be redistributed?
Otherwise, I've hand maybe five or six wrong numbers in that time.
Posted by theamazeeaz (Member # 6970) on :
Last March I got a rather creepy text from someone who was upset his girlfriend was "avoiding" him. I hope he never got in touch with her.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
I get wrong numbers once or twice a month, I think, but only got texts intended for someone else on one occasion. The person sent me a text meant for her friend, which I ignored. An hour or so later, she sent a second one. I sent her a text saying "you are sending texts to the wrong number." She sent me one more text that said "don't respond."
I was a little bit bemused by that. Was she worried I would try to strike up a relationship? Was she trying to inform me that by responding to inform her of the error I had broken some kind of SMS etiquette? Seems to me if she didn't want me to respond to her, the proper thing would have been to quit sending me texts, instead of trying to get the last word. I resisted the (surprisingly strong) temptation to tell her I thought it was stupid via one more text, though.