Strange Phone Call!

When I first moved into my present home, I received, on a regular basis, answerphone messages ordering large quantities of bread and rolls. I often wondered what these people did when their order didn't turn up

Had a couple of odd calls late at night just after the 7/7 bombings had taken place. The caller rang at 11pm and asked for someone I had never heard of. I gave him short shrift as it was so late. When he had hung up, I rang 1471 and it said the number was withheld. He then rang again and I threatened him with the Police which seemed to scare him considerably. Looking back, it was a bit of an over the top reaction from me, but in my defence it was late at night and I was on .y own

We have a number 1 digit different from a local butcher, and used to get calls for them. Once the numbers changed from 4 to 6 digits, the calls seemed to disappear, but I never worked out why, as the same 2 digits were added to both.

Our number was also very like the number of the manse (think 3345 against 3445) and once, when we had a minister with the same first name as DS, I had a long and confused call with someone who asked, as I thought, to speak to DS, who had just gone away to university. The caller was a bit taken aback to find that the minister had gone away until I recognised his voice and we sorted it out.

Some great stories on this thread!

Years ago after having a landline number for over 20 years my dad began getting a lot of calls for a taxi, usually late at night. We found out a new taxi company had opened with one digit different to ours. I called them and politely asked if they could change their number but was given a load of abuse. We looked up the numbers of other taxi companies and when calls came we said calls were diverted and gave out the number of one of the other taxi firms. In one occasion very late a chap called and wondered where his taxi had got to, dad said "it's just round the corner" . Chap said, "Oh thank you, I'll walk round". I did feel a bit bad taking an airport booking but it was 4.30am and the last of 12 calls that night. We had a call from the new taxi company demanding to know why we had told folk their number had changed. I told them as they would not change their number we had changed it for them! The calls stopped after that.

At one point my parents used to get a call at 3.00am every morning. When they picked the phone up they would get a crackling sound. It was in fact a fax machine.

Clearly some company had a fax set up to send a document at 3.am every morning. Why they didn't notice that the document never arrived at its destination I really do not know.

My parents spoke to BT who said there was nothing they could do. as they could not give my parents the number dialing them for security reasons, so they could ring the number in day time and hope for a reply, nor would they contact the number themselves.

In the end my parents simply unplugged the phone every night before they went to bed.

Tank you for initial warning -I might have easily absentmindedly given my name.

with unknown dodgy cold calls (ie if they say they are from Sky or something and not sure) I interrupt them in first sentence and say please give me your number I will call you back and phone always just goes dead.

Every afternoon we get a call on our fixed line from someone we don’t know , same interstate number. Now I just lift the phone and drop it to cut it off but they still persist. I have answered a couple of times in the early days and I could hear that it was some sort of call centre with a delay in response.

The first telephone we had as a married couple, had unfortunately previously been that of the local sewage station!! You can imagine the calls we would get!! Fortunately I worked at the local telephone exchange, once I passed the word around, may workmates would intercept the calls and save us a lot of unwelcome midnight calls.

We are nearly the same as the local piano tuner who plays at funerals. One night I picked up a message and it was a long list of instructions for him from a vicar about an imminent funeral. I spent ages trying to get back to one or other of them to point out the error! I know it wasn't my problem but somehow I felt responsible!

There are scammers who clone your number. We had a call from a lady who said someone had called her from our number. Don’t know how it’s done.

This is a phishing call trying to get identifying information to scam you.

Not long after moving into our present home I had a call,"Hello. Is that the family planning clinic?" She wondered why I exploded into laughter, until I explained that she had the wrong number, and that I had five children!

Every Christmas morning for some years I would answer the telephone, and an old lady's voice would ask: "That you, Wol?" I always wished her a Merry Christmas, and rather missed her when the calls stopped.

M0nica

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

"Well, if I dialled the wrong number, why did you answer?" :D

When I got the knicker phone call, I felt sure I recognised the voice. I identifiedit a couple of weeks later. It was DH's boss!

The previouse night had been the annual company dinner dance. I was wearing a silky jersey dress, not tight, but it did cling a bit and as I didn't want a visible pantiline I had one all of those allin one garments that poppered at the crutch. I think it was called 'a teddy'. I had danced with him. He had been running his arm up and down my back, but not tried to wander into unacceptable territory.

I didn't tell DH until after he had moved on to another company. By then it was some years in the past. he commented, that while he had not seen him indulging in unacceptable behaviour at work, he had a reputation for being a lech.

I've had call after call on my mobile from Camden local council advising me when their team would arrive to carry out a repair at my house and to be sure someone would be there to let them in. I tried and tried to convince them I live in Northumberland and it's 300 miles away but to no avail. Finally, I gave up and blocked them.

We were bombarded for weeks with calls from a man at all hours of the day and night. Some vile suggestions were being made but only when I answered. DH would just get told oh sorry wrong number. His number always witheld. The police simply advised blowing a whistle down the phone. We changed our number and they stopped. But it was scarey at the time.

I always run unknown numbers through the 'who called me website'
It will often show whether a number is genuine, neutral or dangerous.

We live in South Yorkshire and our landline code is 1 digit away from a Doctors in Scotland so we get a lot of 8am calls.

We always feel very sorry for the callers as they clearly need to contact the Drs and thats never easy.

When I was working I did have a couple of "Dirty" phone calls and I did have a bit of fun with them :-)

Our old number was a few digits off a firm of solicitors number. We had an answering machine and the message clearly said “ You have reached Mr Lizzies and Lizzies. Please leave a message.” On several occasions we came home to messages asking the solicitor to call them back. The caller would say “Mountgarret here need to speak to so and so call me back.” It was Viscount Mountgarret, the guy who famously shot at a hot air balloon that came too close to his grouse moor. We didn’t want to get the solicitor into trouble through no fault of theirs, so we rang them and passed on the message!

emmasnan

I once had a call from a man asking what colour my knickers were. I told him I had no idea I'd been in a rush to get dressed so just grabbed a pair and I hadn't looked since. He hung up, I think I bored him.

Yes, I had one of those when I was working - just said I didn't wear any and hung up!

Our family landline number was similar to the pub up the road, the Queen’s Head, and one night frustrated after several calls for them from the same person my Dad could be heard shouting that this was the Kings Arms and he was going to use them to strangle the caller if they dialled again.

One of Copenhagen's prisons is situated next door to one of the city's largest cemetaries and some years ago now the two intitutions had consecutive telephone numbers.

One day a sexton answering the phone was greeted with "This is Mr. - from the firm of -- criminal lawyers, I need to speak urgently to one of your inmates, Mr. __"

"I doubt, you will get an answer from any of our inmates, " replied the sexton, "as you are through to the cemetary not the prison."

It apparently took a couple of seconds for the answer to register with the caller.

A few years ago the design department of Cadbury (ten minutes away) had mistakenly given our number to its clients. I had daily calls from all over the world and many interesting chats before giving them the correct number. Eventually It became too much so I politely advised Cadbury and said much as it had all been very interesting could they now rectify it. I had a lovely package from them - a huge box of chocolates, a real Parker Fountain Pen and other odds and ends - and no more calls.

Some years and two houses ago our phone number was one digit short of the Samaritans, and we got quite a few calls from distressed people. I always worried about them when I had to say you’ve misdialled, but do try again.