Everybody makes mistakes, but it’s when you refuse to correct them that things really get out of hand.

When one too-busy-for-his-own-good lawyer mistakenly wrote the wrong number on his business cards, an innocent bystander became the victim of a flurry of unwanted calls.

After the lawyer ignored their polite requests, they decided it was time to dial up some creative payback.

Read on for the full story!

Lawyer refused to correct his business cards.

Back in the early 2000s, I had had my cell number for about four years.

Then, one night, I got multiple calls from someone who only spoke Chinese.

I kept telling them they had a wrong number, which I’m pretty sure they didn’t understand.

Even stranger, the calls came at odd times of night.

These calls persisted every few weeks at all times of day and night, but most frequently between midnight and 3 a.m.

Finally, they started to get some answers.

Eventually, after about six months, I received a call from a legal assistant to a lawyer named Colin W.

She explained to me that there was a typo on his business cards.

Instead of a 3 in his phone number, it had a 2 — which was my number.

She asked if I could give the person calling the correct number.

This was an unreasonable request for multiple reasons.

I responded that, one, 99% of the calls I received were from people who only spoke Chinese, and two, couldn’t they just get new cards or write the proper number on them?

She responded that they had ordered a lot of cards and didn’t want to order new ones.

But she assured me they’d make an effort to put the correction on the cards.

The calls eventually stopped for a while, but it didn’t last.

About 4-5 months went by with no late-night calls, so I figured the problem was solved.

But I was wrong.

The calls started up again — this time more frequently.

I was getting calls every two to three days, multiple times a day, at all hours.

So they call the law firm back and to plead they fix the issue.

So, I called Colin W.

He apologized and explained that he ran a very small immigration law firm.

He said his legal assistant had quit, and she was the one who made the phone number correction on the cards.

He claimed he was far too busy to remember to make the correction every time he handed out his cards.

So the lawyer tried to make the whole thing their problem.

He asked if I could just give the person calling the correct number.

I told him that was almost impossible because 99% of his clients didn’t speak English.

His response? “Try your best,” and then he hung up.

Nevertheless, they did try to correct people the best they could.

This really frustrated me, but what could I do?

For the next few months, I tried my best to correct people.

But very few understood me and would repeatedly call back after I hung up on them.

Then, one day, I was at the mall with friends.

But one day, a better opportunity presented itself.

A lady at one of those kiosks asked if I’d like to enter a contest to win a trip to Florida or Mexico.

My friend said, “Don’t. It’s a time-share scam. As soon as they get your number, they constantly call you with ‘You won a free trip!’ — but you have to pay fees for it.”

That’s when I had a great idea for some petty revenge.

So they got to work.

I entered Colin W. into the contest.

In fact, there were multiple contests at the mall, and I entered him into all of them — from trips to free gym memberships to gift cards!

The lawyer had many opportunities to rectify the situation, all of which he refused.

Besides his name and number, I had looked up his law firm address and email online.

I’d tried to call him to complain, but he wouldn’t take my call.

I even emailed him to ask him to get new cards and wrote a snail mail letter to urge him to fix his cards.

So they continued entering him in everything they could find.

I had a lot of downtime at work, so I started to enter him into contests online.

Usually, I did 5 to 15 entries a day.

I did this five days a week when I was at work and anytime I was out shopping.

This went on for about eight months.

Until finally the lawyer got the hint.

I would have kept going even longer, but at the eight-month mark, I stopped getting calls for Colin W.

Around a week after that, I looked him up online — and he’d changed his cellphone number.

It doesn’t matter who you are: What goes around, comes around!

What did Reddit think?

This commenter said: Waste my time, I scare off your business!

Here’s hoping his business lost plenty of revenue because of his negligence.

If this person was taking calls for the lawyer, they might as well get put on the payroll!

Play silly games, win stupid prizes!

This lawyer eventually started getting calls again — just not from who he expected.

When negligence picks up the phone, karma answers!

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.