When I'm home on Saturday AM I look carefully at the caller ID. If I don't recognize the number, I answer it "Pep Boys".

Their number is 1 off of mine and I generally get a few calls for them on Saturday morning.

The rule is this: First call, I'm polite and tell them they have the wrong number. If they are stupid enough to hit 'redial' and call me again, their ass is mine!

It's pretty amusing. I don't get upset, I sell them tires! You bet! I make up my own prices, promise great deals and make appointments with them at wierd times.

Generally, I tell them that Saturday night there's a Moonlight Madness sale between midnight and 3 AM.

With any luck, the guy shows up for his 2am appointment half in the bag, having just locked up some ginmill and gets PO'd and throws a rock through the darkened storefront window.

Been doing this for years. Still can't get them to change their number, and I'll be damned if I will.

Anyone else out there with this problem? If so, how do you deal with it?

Good for a chuckle, thanks.

My home number is one digit off from a financial service company.  I've been tempted to ask some of the more "persistant" callers for their account number and PIN.  I'm sure there are a few who would be stupid enough to give up the info over the phone, but I have no desire to spend any time behind bars.

Instead, I usually tell them that I've sold off their entire portfolio and invested the money in zinc futures, per their request.  [:D]

Crime Victims Assistance printed our old phone number on their applications.  We would at least 3 calls a day.  Most of the callers were spanish speaking and I couldnt communicate with them so they would call back.  The ones that I could communicate with called back even though I informed them of the problem.  Never really played any games because I knew some of these people were in bad situations but it bugged the heck out of me.

We moved into a rental house, set up phone service and thought we were done.

Calls started coming in right away at all hours of the day and night for a maid service, Merry Maids.

It was funny for the first 3 calls, after a week it got old and after a month I was ready to kill!

I called the phone company and asked why this was happening, they told me that it was our luck that we had gotten the old number for Merry Maids.
When we asked to have the number changed PacBell told us that we would have to pay for new service and that they could not guarentee that the same thing would not happen again.
I also called Merry Maid's up to ask if they would pay half the cost of getting a new phone number.
They flat out said no.

I started answering the phone with all sorts of crazy stuff.

About a month later we got a call from Merry Maids wanting to know what we were telling thir customers. I told them what was goiing on, they threatened to call their lawyer up.

So I upped the ante. Me and the wife would answer the phone and say "We are no longer Merry Maids, we are now Naked Maid Service. Please let us know what you need cleaned and what kind of a service you would like".

That freaked out a lot of people.
About a week later we got a call from the sheriff's office asking if we were "Naked Maid Service". I died laughing. The detective asked me if he could come over, so I said ok.

He came over and talked to me and the wife for a few minutes, we showed him the year before last's phone book with our current number listed as the one for Merry Maids and a the notepad that I had written down the info from my phone call to PacBell.
While he was there we had 2 phone calls from people looking for maid service.

He laughed and asked us not to use the Naked Maid Service line as the sheriff's office had three complaints about it.

I asked him if he had called Merry Maid's, he said no, so I asked him to call them up and tell them what was going on. He did, the next day the owner of Merry Maids called us up and told us that he would pay to get us a new phone number.

I told him that I would agree to that, but I thought that it was PacBell's responsibility to get the number changed.

I called up the state's phone commission board and found out that all I had to do was file a complaint with both PacBell and the State and that PacBell would change the number free of charge.

The owner of Merry Maid's called and filed a complaint, me and the wife also submitted seperate claims.

The number was changed in three days.

Life on the slab must be boring. You sail yet??

So this is what time on the water does to you, eh...?

We just moved into a new place in March.  Sometime around May, we started getting phone calls for 'Titans'.  We couldn't figure out what the hell it was, till someone asked about 'titans football'.  Sure enough, I punched our phone number into google, and it came up as the football team for one of the local park districts.  I didn't think of having the same kind of fun you guys did... I could have sent people to fictional late-night practice sessions in the middle of nowhere.

Aside from that, we still get a lot of calls from some guy who had this number before us, that apparently bounced a lot of checks in the past.  The next one I get, I'm tempted to tell them that the guy died in a tragic blimp wreck.

never happened to me, but i heard a great story along these lines.

lady had her phone# for years, new marriot hotel goes up in town with # one off from hers.  she starts getting calls constantly for reservations.  she figures out what's up, calls marriot, politely asks 'em to change their #, they basically tell her to fuck off.

typical corporate response "we're marriot, we're big, you're not, so we don't have to care".

hardball time!!

she starts merrily making reservations for every call that comes in, offers upgrades to penthouse suites, group discounts, you name it.

imagine the scenes at the front desk...

marriot eventually cried "uncle" and changed their number.

bravo!!!

at my first apartment, i ended up with a phone number that had been printed in the yellow pages as a lawn/yard work service company

i got 1-2 calls per day asking about shoveling snow, mowing lawn, raking leaves, etc.

ameritech (bastards) wouldn't change the number unless i paid them for a new connection


i had a lot of fun putting people on, but since the company was out of business, nothing good was going to come of it, other than keeping me from tossing the phone through the wall

what?

Some of these folks notified the business that they had thier old #, etc and the business was not willing to work something out?

If the calls keep on rolling in at 3am, I think it's fair game to have some fun.

How long are you going to answer the phone and tell people the same story after Merry Maids customers call you 100 times a day??

Remember the start of this thread.

The 1st time they call, I'm helpful. Anyone can make a mistake. If they are stupid enough to hit 'redial', their ass is mine.

After all, I specifically give them the right number and carefully point out the mistake they made.

"Dial 455, NOT 445 and you'll get through."

Amazing how many dumbasses will be stupid or lazy and hit 'redial'.

Could I speak to Mr. Rassmussen?

Stokes, I dunno if you are lacking a sense of humor or not, but most of these folks try to be genuinely helpful for the first few times.  If businesses aren't interested in making sure people are calling THEM, well, they just don't want the business in my opinion.  

I had one (1) problem with someone calling my number.  After a week of three calls at a time, I posted the offending party's # here.  He's now decided not to call me, and to change his number.  If he'd have listened the first 10 or so times he called and I told him wrong number, he might have avoided all of that.  But some folks choose to ignore reality and continue down the path of the stupid.  

Edited to add....

at what point does the incovenience and the lack of telephone service become an issue for the person involved?  If people started calling me looking for Pizza, I'd make a good faith effort to inform them, and let the pizza place know.  But how long do I have to put up with folks asking me for Pizza?  1 month? 1 year?  When does it come too much trouble for me?

I have my own Zero Tolerance Policy - for STUPID people.  My number is similar to a local motel (Indian owned - of course).  People call at ALL hours looking for rooms.  They wake ME up because THEY are too dumb to dial a phone so they are fair game.  Same for the idiots that were unable to see through their drug induced haze to dial correct number for pizza joint - I just took orders.  Place finally went out of business and the problem slowly went away.  Wonder what people thought when they rolled up to empty building to PU their pie?  Do I give a rat's ass?  It is unbelievable the people that give ME a hard time because THEY dialed a wrong #.  Un f****** believable!

Telemarketers are fair game as soon as they call, 1st time.  A pox on all them bastards, every one!  I have found the best solution for them is a string of the most vile profanity I can muster.  Works pretty well except on the damn computerized ones.  Those REALLY piss me off!

Stokes, each to his own opinion but I strongly disagree with yours!  You answer the STUPID MORONS I get every day and see if you like it.

It means crazy. BooCoo Dinky Dau is VERY CRAZY


Scott

Thats really funny. I mess with telemarketers in similar fasion. I tell them I wont by anything from strangers, and try to get to know them. Then I act like there my long lost friend. Its great, sometimes they believe me.

Don't even get me started on telemarketers!
One called trying to sell me a grave site. Halfway through, I told him I was interested, lit a firecracker and dropped the phone receiver into the floor.  Let's NOT describe the ensuing chaos. The Statute of Limitations is still out on that one.

On thing to keep in mind if anyone ever gets your old number.  Their address is only a reverse lookup away.

Use the information you've got to get the information you want.

Use caution when pissing off drug dealers and the like on the phone.  One of them might show up at your door one day.  Not that brains are a trait commonly had in those circles.....

I suspect "drug dealers" showing up at the door of most of the members of this board would result in a public service!  Kinda like robbing a gun store at knife point!

Reminds me of a tidbit in nature.  There is a species of mosquito that ONLY drills for FROG blood!  Talk about a risky occupation.  The frog, of course, just eats what bugs him.

If I call a business and the person on the other end just answers "hello", that's my first clue that I have mis-dialed. I then ask if this is company "a". If I am told "sorry, you have the wrong number", I say I"m sorry, hang up and carefully redial so as not to screwup again. If a person, or persons, continues to mis-dial after having been told about the problem, bombs away!

Dealing with the phone company is an exercise in futility. If we wnat our number unlisted, it will cost us $$ a month. Imagine paying monthly just to have nothing in a book.