Strange Phone Call!

This sounds very like a call I had last week. The caller saw my number and thought it might be a friend with a London landline number so called it. She seemed very clued up on scams though and said she'd had one of those bank fraud calls (I get a lot of those) and figured that they were now using random real numbers that people might see pop up on their phones and think the call was legitimate. She didn't question me as she accepted I hadn't called her and wasn't scamming her.

At our previous house, we used to be one digit different from a local garage. I often had people ringing me up to book their car in for service.

My mum got quite a few calls from a wrong number, always the same one. It was a man with a strong accent - Chinese, she thought - who was trying to get in touch with his dad. She said that she felt sorry when she had to keep telling him that this was not his dad's number. She wondered whether he ever managed to get the right one or just gave up!

We had recently moved and a man phoned asking for Pat, the previous owner. I told him she had moved. He asked who had moved. There was a rather confused conversation as he had been calling me Pet. He then enquired about the colour of my knickers and whether I was wearing sexy leather thigh high boots .

It actually made me laugh at the time! 40+ years ago now!

My phone number used to be very close to that of a local restaurant, just before Valentine’s Day one year I had a call from a lovely lady wanting to book a table for 2 for her son and girlfriend. I did explain that I didn’t normally do catering but I could manage beans on toast in the conservatory. Luckily she had a sense of humour too and I gave her the number she should have called.

(Q - why is his Mum doing this and not him?)

When I was a child our phone number was very similar to the local Maternity Home and we often used to receive misdialled calls from nervous fathers to be!

Many years ago we had the same number but a different area code as a nearby prison. What an interesting lot of conversations we had for a while 😱

Oldwoman70

Well, this is getting weird! Just had another call from the same number, the same woman, this time asking for Pat - I just said wrong number and hung up!

Sounds like a scam to me! If it's a mobile no ringing your mobile just block it.

One of those people who will not accept that they dialled incorrectly or have been given the wrong number.

At a previous house we used to receive calls from the local aircraft/pilot training school, trying to order a Chinese takeaway.

Well, this is getting weird! Just had another call from the same number, the same woman, this time asking for Pat - I just said wrong number and hung up!

Years ago our phone number was almost the same as a pub and regularly had calls for them.
One night I answered the phone to hear,
"Hello is that the Red Lion? It's the Green Dragon here."

Although they had got me out of bed it did make me laugh.

you did well.
but i think it's easier to let unknown callers go to voicemail, then you can decide whether you want to engage, or not.
i use call guardian phones.
never have unwanted calls now.

Septimia

Many years ago my aunt used to get calls for the Bishop of Guildford...

Many years ago my aunt used to get calls for the Bishop of Guildford...

On our business we constantly got phone calls meant for the nearby off license. My DH was so fed up being interrupted while trying to work. He would give callers the phone number for Alcoholics Anonymous.

Yes, we were once one digit out from both the main hospital down the road and a mains dealership.

We used to get people arguing with us that we must be the garage or hospital because they had dialled the right number. To which our response was the one used by Morecambe and Wise, yes, they had dialled (played) all the right numbers (notes), but not in the right order.

Our landline is one digit different to the local hospital, a food supplier and a nursing home. We get frequent misdials from people wanting(eg) Ward X or to order 10Kg oven chips or to speak to matron! If he doesn't recognise the caller number DH answers in his best plummy accent " X Towers, butler speaking". This usually helps the penny drop!

British response Calendergirl

If I ever get a ‘wrong’ call, I find myself apologising that I am not who they want to speak to!

Why? Not my fault that they have mis-dialled.

Some years ago I had a call from a woman who said 'Hi Jill'. I said 'Sorry you have the wrong number.' She said 'I don't think so. This is my daughter's number'. It took me a while to convince her that she had mis dialled.

When I lived in a flat years ago, I received at least one phone call a day wanting to speak to someone at the nearby Post Office.
I often had similar conversations to that, with several callers insisting that I was the post office.
After a couple of weeks of this, I looked in the Yellow Pages under Post Offices, and lo and behold, there was my number.
My current phone number is one digit off a nearby hairdressers, so I still get similar calls now

Maybe the caller did not have a record of the number they called or maybe they did not know how to retrieve the record.