TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Need Help With a Telephone Mystery


Re: Need Help With a Telephone Mystery


DLR (news22@raleighthings.com)
Thu, 26 Jan 2006 06:49:49 -0500

> My father told a story from back in the 1940s: for some reason people
> kept calling his phone (obTelecomHistory: WAlnut, a manual exchange in
> uptown New Orleans) when they wanted to contact their local grocery to
> have food delivered. (Yes, some groceries did that 'way back
> when ... PeaPod is nothing new.) Apparently someone at the grocery was
> giving out the wrong number and complaints to the grocery didn't help.

> He finally fixed the problem by responding to the calls complaining
> about slow deliveries: he profusely apologized, and told the caller
> that as a good-will gesture the next order would include some fancy
> lagniappe at no cost to the customer. Presumably the blasts directed
> at the store about its failure to include the promised lagniappe
> finally got management's attention.

When I moved to NC in 87, we were given a number that had belong to a
lawyer. :)

About once a month we got a call and politely told them we didn't know
what his number was and that was it. But there was that one call about
a year after we got the number.

"I've been arrested, can you bail me out?" It was on the answering
machine. So I couldn't even tell the poor guy how bad off he really
was.

The other day, I got a call the caller id showed as a hispanic name
that I didn't recognize. On a whim I answered. (I work at home and try
and ignore most personal calls during the day to the home number.) I
said hello, the other end said in what seemed to me to be a plaintive
female voice, "Maria?". I tried in my non-existent Spanish to tell her
wrong number but she kept repeating that name in a questioning
voice. I gave up and hung up. She called every half hour a few more
times. I called a friend who speaks Spanish and got the phrase for
"wrong number" and tried that. No luck. So I ignored the calls. About
6 that day. The next day we got 2 more then they ended. I was going to
ask my friend to call the caller id and try and explain if it didn't
stop.

Is there any other way to deal with this?

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