posted
So I just got drunk dialed at 1:30 am by someone I don't even know. He clearly had access to my facebook profile somehow, though he claimed to have met me and exchanged numbers at a party on campus. It was clear He'd never been to my campus. It was mostly harmless, he spent the entire time commenting me for my work on MEM and asking me how he could become a part of it (he sounded sincere, but his friend's were collapsed in hilarity in the background). I was pretty tired, and rather annoyed that someone I don't know was calling me at 1:30 am, when I'd set up a perfectly good forum for this sort of thing.
I was also annoyed by the fact that it was clearly just a drunk dial and not really sincere. How he got access to my profile, I don't know. I have my privacy restricted to just friends... then again, there are people on my friends list who are exactly the type who'd do this, just as a prank. Oh well, it was by and large harmless.
Anyone here ever had similar experiences?
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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No, but just yesterday I came home to a rather depressing message from an elderly sounding woman who apparently thought she'd called a daughter that was avoiding her.
Posts: 1945 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Our phone message says our last name. I'm always rather amused when someone says, "John? John Otherlastname? Are you there? ...well, I don't know why you're not picking up. Call me!"
I'm like, "Do you people even LISTEN to the message?"
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Rollainm- I used to get messages from and old woman every few weeks when I lived in Richmond. She thought I was someone else who hadn't contacted her in long time, as well. Once she even left a message asking if I was planning on helping her put up her Christmas light this year.
One night I had a dream that she died, and I was very sad!
My friend Matthew used to get the same phone call about once a month from some guy asking for Tracy. Matthew always replied "she's not here," which was truth, but never said that she never had been there, and that the guy had the wrong number. The same guy called for years! Never asked where she was, just said "okay," and would hang up. Ha, Matthew was always the best kind of jerk, constantly bemused at absurdity and always willing to perpetuate it.
Alcon - I was in a dorm only one semester when I attended a University, and people could access any room's phone because numbers all had the same prefix and were arranged according to room number or something. We used to get really muffed up random calls in the middle of the night all the time.
Posts: 3936 | Registered: Jul 2000
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I've been getting automated calls on my cell from an elementary school in California, warning me that my daughter was absent today, or that state testing is starting and my child needs to be well rested.
Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
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While in TX, I received several threatening messages on my answering machine from a law firm in a state in which I used to live (on the East Coast). They talked so rapidly that I couldn't actually make out the name of the party they were trying to leave a message for. I knew it wasn't me (phew!), but it got so frequent that I finally called them back on my own dime to let them know they had a wrong number.
Posts: 300 | Registered: Dec 2002
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quote:Originally posted by porcelain girl: One night I had a dream that she died, and I was very sad!
Did you hear from her again after you had that dream?
Your friend Matthew sounds like a riot, but I can't help feeling sorry for that clueless guy who never figured out he had a wrong number. Hmm, this might become a short story, actually -- it's a rather compelling image!
Posts: 3149 | Registered: Jul 2005
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A few years back, the Visiting Nurse Association took on a new client and got the phone number wrong -- they had our phone number. We got a message on our machine that a nurse would be contacting us. Several messages from a nurse trying to contact us, finally a message saying that since we weren't answering the phone, she was just going to drop by and she hoped we were OK, messages from the physical and occupational therapist trying to contact us. Lots and lots of messages! I called the VNA to let them know that they had the wrong number, and they changed it in the computer, but not on the papers that they had given to every member of the team. We finally changed our message to "You've called the house of Joseph, Esther and Ephraim Lastname. We are the only ones living here. If you are trying to reach someone else, you have the wrong number."
They still left messages.
And then there was the poor dope who made like a gazillion copies of his resume and sent them out all over the country. With the wrong (our) phone number on it. Dope! We got messages from companies wanting to set up interviews! I looked up his phone number and called him to tell him about his mistake, and then for months afterwards, I took his messages and called him with them, because I thought that one stupid mistake ought not to keep him from seeking gainful employment. I kept this up until he told me that he had a new job and didn't need any more messages.
I'm glad he got the job, but, sheesh! Don't you think you ought to proofread your resume for something like that?
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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I got a few calls on my cell where no one was there when I picked it up. Finally one day I just called the number to see who it was calling me and got a mental hospital!
Posts: 3420 | Registered: Jun 2002
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I once had a guy who called my cell a couple times and left these really, really long messages in some foreign language. I always got a kick out of those because it always seemed like he had to be saying something really interesting.
And I also remember one time when I got a call in the middle of the night from a guy who claimed to be a delivery guy. He was very insistent that he was right outside and wanted me to come get my pizza... The guy seemed really off and the whole thing was very unsettling.
Posts: 959 | Registered: Jan 2002
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I get calls on my house phone from people who start speaking really quickly in Spanish. When I try to tell them (in either English or Spanish) that they have the wrong number, they just keep talking. Sometimes when I hang up on them, they call back repeatedly.
posted
Drives me nuts when I call a number for the first time and the answering machine is,
*standard phone voice*
"Hello, 5..5..5..8..6..9..0..is not available now. At the tone please record your message, when you are finished recording, hang up, or for delivery options press #.
I have no idea if I have reached the correct number I had intended. Invariably I never hear from the person, and thus I remain clueless for all time and forever. Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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My answering machine is like that now, BB. I can't figure out what to say on it, since I use my home phone quite often to call clients and such.
quote:Originally posted by pH: My answering machine is like that now, BB. I can't figure out what to say on it, since I use my home phone quite often to call clients and such.
-pH
Mine try to walk the fine line of humor and normality ;p
I think mine currently is something like, "You have reached Taylor and Tiffany, we are so pleased you called, but obviously not enough to answer the phone, please leave your name and number...etc."
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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I once kept getting calls from a four year old around 11- 12 PM every night for a week. She appearantly thought I was her sister and was calling me when she wasn't supposed to be because whenever I asked to speak to her mom she'd hang up. The situation was made worse by the fact that her sister was named Laura, my name. She didn't seem to get that it wasn't me. I finally started calling that number during the day till I reached her mom and explained the situation. Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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I once got a call on my cell phone from someone I had been in orchestra with and had had my cell # once, but I really didn't like for multiple reasons (some of which were valid). Except it wasn't addressed to me, it was addressed to some other person named Sarah who had slept with her boyfriend the night before. She then left another message telling me how wonderful I was and that she'd never call me again.
Posts: 5362 | Registered: Apr 2004
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I get calls a few times a year from a Bette A. I've never talked to her myself, but she leaves hard-to-understand messages on my voicemail.
Posts: 1805 | Registered: Jun 1999
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15 years ago, my then-roommate got a call on her answering machine one weekend firing the person whose number the guy THOUGHT he had called. No last name or company name was mentioned, so my friend had no way to do anything about it. And this was before the days of caller ID.
Some poor woman walked into work on Monday not knowing that her boss had attempted to fire her . . . .
I trust whoever she was, she's gotten over it by now. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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A friend of mine used to get calls from collection agencies trying to reach the girl who had the phone number before him. They were really a pain, and didn't believe him when he tried to tell them that they had a wrong number.
Posts: 1901 | Registered: May 2004
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When my mom was a kid, their phone number was only one digit off of Green Lantern Pizza's phone number, so they'd always get calls for pizza.
Her brothers would often take orders that were never delivered I know it sounds mean to that poor unsuspecting family that had to wait another half hour for their pizza, but imagine how annoying it was to constantly have to field wrong numbers.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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We get phone calls for the person who used to have our phone number. He used to live across the street, until his house burned down, then moved to a trailer park a couple of miles away.
When someone calls for him, I tell them all that, and add that I don't know his current phone number. I don't think anyone calls back after that. Posts: 2034 | Registered: Apr 2004
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I used to get calls from a lady trying to call her best friend, whose number was one digit off my cell number. She was chatty and after it happened three times she started talking to me a bit more than just "Oh, sorry."
"Oh, are you that young mother I keep bothering? I'm so sorry. If this happens again, I have to take you for coffee. I can't believe I keep doing this!" And so on. After the coffee offer she never called back, which was frankly a relief. I can just imagine the look I'd get telling people I was about to meet a wrong number for coffee. Posts: 9293 | Registered: Aug 2000
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I was given my Mum's old cell phone when I went to high school from junior high. Now, the phone was mine but it was still registered to my Mum so when people would call the number service and ask for my Mum's number they'd get mine.
For a while a not-so-good friend of mine had been making stupid prank calls on the phones of me and my friends, and I was getting pretty annoyed at him. So one time I got this call from an unknown number which I assumed was that friend because his number never showed on my phone. I very rudely took his call and told him to stop.
Turns out it wasn't that friend, it was a man who was calling my Mum to complain about her having complained about his daughter. He hang up and then later he had called Mum and Mum's boss and everybody to yell how Mum had no right to say bad stuff about his darling baby girl when she couldn't even raise her own children to answer the phone right...
Posts: 247 | Registered: Dec 2006
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I get text messaged quite frequently by some guy begging for forgiveness from his girlfriend. Seems like he has to do it once a week.
If I was a real bastard, I'd have a field day with him. But I somehow feel that not answering him anything isn't bettering the situation, at least in his eyes.
Posts: 3486 | Registered: Sep 2002
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I once got a series of calls for a person with my same name. The people were all unreasonably mad. I discovered that the guy they wanted, worked for a county recreation dept, and scheduled little league fields for the county. I finally called the guy's office. His secretary told me that he was a real piece of work. Half the county was usually out for his head and he kept an unlisted number. She really didn't like him, and in exchange for a promise that I wouldn't ever tell where I got it, she gave me his unlisted home phone number. After that, I would ask the callers if they were really mad. When they answered in the affermative, I gave them the real number. He did the same with a mailing address. Up to two years after moving to this state, I was still getting letters intended for him and pointing out some of his shortcomings.
Posts: 1167 | Registered: Oct 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Artemisia Tridentata: His secretary told me that he was a real piece of work. Half the county was usually out for his head and he kept an unlisted number. She really didn't like him, and in exchange for a promise that I wouldn't ever tell where I got it, she gave me his unlisted home phone number.
posted
I was sending one-line, unanswered IMs to a friend for months thinking that she never saw them until it was too late and we had already talked via email, when I finally got an answer saying "I DON'T KNOW YOU!!!!! STOP SENDING ME MESSAGES YOU #$!@@#!!!!"
Goodness. If you'd said something months ago, we could have avoided this unpleasantness.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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For about a month at the beginning of winter my sophomore year, my parents would get late-night and early-morning calls from angry people demanding to know why their parking lots and driveways weren't plowed. We finally managed to get one guy to calm down enough to get information from him. Turned out that the plowing company had the same phone number but in a neighboring area code, and its service area was right along the boundary. And the people calling us were either just not dialing an area code and were on our side of the line or they were dialing the wrong one trying to remember in the wee small hours which one the company was in.
Once we figured out what was going on, my brother started intercepting the calls and being really obnoxious to these people.... I was so waiting for the business owner to call us to complain...
Posts: 4515 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: I was sending one-line, unanswered IMs to a friend for months thinking that she never saw them until it was too late and we had already talked via email, when I finally got an answer saying "I DON'T KNOW YOU!!!!! STOP SENDING ME MESSAGES YOU #$!@@#!!!!"
Goodness. If you'd said something months ago, we could have avoided this unpleasantness.
If they're anything like me, they were sincerely hoping you would CHECK THE NUMBER and stop sending them text messages.
I agree that the language was unnecessary.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Olivet: I can just imagine the look I'd get telling people I was about to meet a wrong number for coffee.
I actually met a couple in New York that got married over a wrong number. I don't know all the details of the story but, she lived in Miami at the time and he was living in the Bronx. She dialed the wrong area code and just happened to call him. They ended up talking and after more calls decided to meet. Eventually they got married.
Posts: 61 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by pH: I get calls on my house phone from people who start speaking really quickly in Spanish. When I try to tell them (in either English or Spanish) that they have the wrong number, they just keep talking. Sometimes when I hang up on them, they call back repeatedly.
-pH
I get these all the time.
Also, I used to have a similar number to the Chinese consulate. I'd get calls all the time in Chinese, and when I'd answer in English, they'd continue to speak Chinese, sometime getting obviously quite upset. As if I were sitting in the consulate's office jerking them around for laughs. Now I almost wish I had been.
Posts: 2596 | Registered: Jan 2006
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I used to get emails from a girl all the time, and I politely emailed her back letting her know that she wasn't getting in contact with the girl she meant to contact, and I thought it best she know so she didn't think she was being ignored.
I received no further emails until several months later she started doing it again, and I ignored it. Then she wrote me asking me to vouch for her against her brother in court, and I wrote her back to apologize for the family drama, but that I STILL wasn't the friend she meant to contact-- and could she stop inviting me to join her mobile network?
She wrote back and asked why on earth I wouldn't want to join her network and didn't I know who she was? No, I didn't. Didn't I ever watch something called AMERICAN IDOL??! No, not really, cause, you know, there's people dying out there. She emailed me a million more times and I finally started just deleting them again.
I really wish I had just called the number she left in the email about court.
Posts: 3936 | Registered: Jul 2000
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I used to work nights, so I got home at about 11:00 P.M. One night when I came home there were seven messages on my answering machine from some guy named Tom, or he was looking for Tom. I don't remember which. I call the caller Tom and the guy he was looking for Sam. I'll the woman Betty.
1. "Sam this is Tom, call me back."
2. "Sam, man, I need to talk to you. Call me back."
3. "Sam, hey Betty says she needs to talk to you. I don't know if you ever answer your phone, so, call me back some time.
4. "Betty says she needs something and she needs you to come over right now."
5. Sounding very agitated now: "Betty was lying, man. She's just trying to get your attention or something. Call me or her back. I want to get this over with."
6. "I really need you to answer your phone. I don't know if you don't want to talk to me or what, but Betty needs to hear from you."
7. "Hey, Sam just answer your phone or call me back, anytime. I need to talk to you."
The next morning, I was awakened by my phone ringing once again. This time it was a different woman that may have been a mother for one of the three people involved, probably the guy that was supposed to be me. I picked up, said hello, and she just started without so much as a 'how are you?': "Hey here's what happened. Betty needed Sam to talk to her because she..." I interrupted her to say that she had the wrong number, that Tom had called me several times before, and I wanted it to stop. She curtly apologized and hung up. I never heard from any of them again.
When my answering machine picks up, it says "This is (my first name) at (my phone number). Leave your name, number, and a message and I'll get back to you." I say my name very clearly, and it isn't Sam. Tom should have heard that the first time he called. It was entertaining though. I don't hear much family drama any more.
Posts: 684 | Registered: Jun 2002
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I know it sounds mean to that poor unsuspecting family that had to wait another half hour for their pizza, but imagine how annoying it was to constantly have to field wrong numbers.
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