General Chat

A local coach company placed an advert in the local paper and unfortunately it was printed with our very similar number.

We weren't pleased to be woken by phone calls at 5.20 one morning asking why the coach hadn't turned up. Nor did we like having to answer questions like "Are you running Turkey and Tinsel trips this year..?"
Fortunately the problem didn't last long, as most people were familiar with the correct number, which was printed on all the coaches and in the phone directory.

A long time ago Marconi Marine in Chelmsford had a similar number to ours and had a batch of business cards incorrectly printed.
Fortunately they didn't get much business from people they gave then out to.

Andysmum .......

glad you got a better reception from Yellow Pages than I did!

We didn't dare leave the phone off the hook ........... this was before any messaging systems, and we still had aged parents in England.

On one of our foreign postings we let our house, only to find on our return home that the tenants had sub-let it to a 24 hour taxi firm.

After a few late-night calls from people wanting taxis I left the phone off the hook over night. I also contacted our Yellow Pages and had a much better response than Sylvia did - they removed it before printing the next edition.

Not a problem with phone numbers directly, but with a name.

A local, and very successful, speedway driver has an identical name to mine right down to the spelling of the first name. We would frequently receive phone calls for him as his various contacts, presumably his lesser known ones worked through the A Mortimer's in the phone book. Unfortunately, ours is the very first entry in that section.

He is now no longer active as a driver so the calls have ceased, but in one of those twists of irony (ok I know irony is a very hard metal not easily twisted) my son works with him at the local Silicon Smelter :-D :-D

Although I have not had a call for them for a long time now, I have a number that is only one digit away from the scrapyard in the village.

I never liked the man who had it very much so I would always take the opportunity to tell them how much better was the service given by the yard belonging to a friend of mine.

We have a number which is the same as a local doctors surgery with the last two digits reversed. The trouble started when they misprinted a batch of appinotment cards. They changed the cards quickly enough, but every now again we would get details of patients ailments left on the answerphone, some of them, well, things you should only tell your doctor......

Andy

for about 2 years we would get calls in the middle of the night from people wanting new glass in shop windows :-S

They didn't get a good response from us, and usually swore and slammed the phone down.

After about 6 months, one man finally phoned us back to say .........

"Do you know that this number is the top highlighted number in the Yellow Pages ad for xxxxxx Glass Company, and it is to be used for night calls?"


No, we did not!!!! We thanked him for the call back.

Turned out that one of the reps for that company had indeed had the number that became ours, he had moved or left the company the previous year but no-one had contacted the phone company to have it removed from the ad.

The phone company told me that there was nothing that I could do .............. the glass company had to make the change, and that would not happen until the next edition of the Yellow Pages was issued ......... in 6 months time!

The glass company did sweet fanny adam ..... so the number was in the next edition of the Yellow Pages. :-0 :-| :-P

That''s when we got really angry, went from advising callers to use another number in the ad (there were about 3 more), to telling them to use another company. We advised the glass company that was what we were doing ............... and our number finally disappeared from their ad the following year.



One of our friends shared a house with other students when they got a phone number that turned to be on all the delivery cars and vans of a famous pizza house. Once the guys tuned into why they were getting so many calls ordering pizzas, they told the company. When nothing happened, and the number was still being advertised ........ they started taking orders for pizzas and assuring delivery in 10 or 15 minutes. :-D

It took about a month, but the company finally responded by putting a new number on their vehicles.

We had a phone number almost the same as a local cash and carry and were forever getting calls for them. One conversation went something like this:- "Hallo, got any marmalade?" Wife, "Yes". Caller, "How much have you got?" Wife, "Hang on, I'll have a look....... hallo, I've got about half a jar". Caller "Is that M...s cash and carry/" Wife, "NO" The rest of his call is unrepeatable.

:-D :-D :-D :-D

No, quite the opposite. Sounds like a market trader which he probably was.

Does he have a squeaky voice as well? :-D

I have just been talking on the telephone to the uncle of a celebrity.

Well, actually it was the uncle of Joe Pasquale who runs a wholesale fruit and veg business and sometimes confuses my number with somebody who does something involving egg boxes.