There are only so many combinations of phone numbers to go around.

That means that phone numbers often get recycled.

When one person no longer uses the phone number it’s reassigned to someone else.

That can create a big problem when the person who used to have the phone number doesn’t tell anyone they changed their number.

It’s an even bigger problem when the person who used to have the phone number is the owner of a store who still tells his customers that is his phone number.

The man in this story was very annoyed at the wrong number calls at first, but then he found a way to get revenge.

I know it’s your number, but…

Quite some time ago, my girlfriend and I (now my wife of more than 15 years) moved in together, and had to set up all the things.

Cable, internet, phone, etc.

We got our home phone number, our 2 cell phones, and we were off to the races.

Almost immediately, we start getting calls for an establishment that does custom framing and various other art-related things.

Let’s call them “Expo for Art.”

Of course, we had caller ID, and we had friends that would call us, but inevitably if we didn’t recognize the number it was someone wanting to find out if their order was complete, or their frame was done, of what their hours were, or any of a thousand other questions.

I’m sure anyone else who had had this happen will recognize this exchange.

They tried to explain the situation.

“Sorry, that’s no longer their number, this is a residence.”

“Yes I’m sure”

“No I’m not giving you my address.”

“No I don’t know their new number.”

“Yes I have a phone book, but so do you.”

Eventually, after a thousand of these, and changing the message on our answering machine to say “This is not, I repeat not, Expo for Art. If you are trying to reach Expo for Art, please hang up, look up their number, and try that, because we aren’t them.”

The calls still didn’t stop.

Eventually, I got my gazillionth call, and I asked the person on the other end of the line where they keep getting this number.

“Well it’s printed on my receipt. I guess I’ll just call this other number.”

Any chance you can give me that one? Thanks.

I call it.

“Hello, Expo for Art. You guys are still giving out my home phone number on your receipts.”

“Yeah. So?”

“Well, stop it. It’s been at least a year since you haven’t had that number. At least cross it out or something.”

The store owner wasn’t helpful.

“That’s a pain in the butt, I’m not making my employees do that.”

“So you’re the manager?”

“I’m the owner.”

“So let me see if I have this right. You, what was your name again?”

Let’s call him Fred.

“You, Fred have decided that it’s too inconvenient to cross my home phone number off of your receipts, so you’re just going to keep giving it out?”

He had it right.

“Yup. What are you gonna do? Sue me?”

“Maybe.”

“Whatever. I’ve got stuff to do. Bye.”

I called a lawyer. Didn’t really have a leg to stand on.

I went to the store and asked for Fred. “Fred’s not here. He’s hardly ever here, really. You want me to call him?”

“No, I’m fine. I know this is going to sound odd, but is there any chance I can see one of your receipts?”

He pretended like he was just a customer.

She picks up a receipt book, and shows it to me.

Sure enough, it’s got my phone number at the top, above another one.

I say “I thought so. I couldn’t get you at the other number, some guy yelled at me, and I didn’t have my old receipt, so I had to come down here.”

“We’ve been having that happen a lot. Ever since Fred decided we didn’t need two phone lines. But he had just bought like 20 boxes of these receipt books and business cards, and he’s too cheap to buy more until they run out. I’d hate to be that guy.”

“Yeah, that’s gotta suck.”

Now it’s time for revenge.

So I went home, and hatched my evil plan.

Next phone number I didn’t recognize: “Hello, Expo for Art.”

“Hi, this is Mary Smith, I dropped off a thing last week to be framed. Is it ready?”

“Let me check. Yup. We finished it this morning. I hope you don’t mind, but we decided to upgrade the matting because of the weight of the piece. It’s the same color, and won’t be charging you for it, since it was my decision.”

“Oh, thank you. I’ll be down to pick it up later today. What time do you close?”

He decides to lie.

I look down at the business card, with my number and the hours clearly marked 11-4.

“Take your time, we’ll be here until 7.”

“Thank you so much, can you tell me how much that was?”

“$19.99 ma’am, plus tax so $21.39”

“Wow that’s cheap. Are you sure?”

“Of course. If anyone has a problem, tell them you talked to Fred.”

“OK, see you around 6.”

“See you then. Thank you for calling Expo for Art.”

The revenge continued.

For WEEKS I kept giving out completely random information.

How much is a 36″x48″ matted frame?

Let’s say $24.99.

Wow that’s cheap, how much to have it done custom, how they want it? Custom is an extra $10, so $34.99.

Wow that’s cheap, I’ll be right down, what was your name?

Fred.

See you in 10 Fred.

This went on for quite awhile.

How much to have the entire front page of the New York Times from 9/11 mounted and framed?

$33.99, unless you want our special, proprietary newspaper frame and mat service, only $49.99 and guaranteed for life, only at Expo for Art, tell them Fred sent you.

I can only imagine the number of mad people who showed up to pick up orders that weren’t ready, and when they finally were, were given a price WAAAAY higher than what Fred had told them over the phone.

Fred finally found out what’s going on.

Eventually, someone let slip that “they called the number on the receipt, and that’s what Fred had told them.”

Fred was NOT happy.

“Hello, thank you calling Expo for Art, this is Fred.”

“YOU’RE NOT FRED, I’M FRED!!! ARE YOU TRYING TO PUT ME OUT OF BUSINESS?!?!?!?!?!‽”

“Why Fred, whatever do you mean?”

“Someone has been giving prices to my customers, and telling them their orders are in when they’re not due for weeks.”

He made sure Fred connected the dots.

“Well, Fred, who called them?”

“Nobody called them, they called us.”

“Then what’s the problem. If someone called you, and got pricing information, that would seem to be your problem.”

“They didn’t call me, they called you.”

“Well, how would that happen?”

“Your number is on my receipts and business cards.”

The solution really is clear.

“My my. It seems to me there’s a very simple solution here. Take my number off of your receipts and business cards.”

“Do you have any idea how much promotional materials cost?”

“Is it MORE than it costs to do these jobs for the prices you’re quoting? Is it more than it costs to lose customers, or less than that?”

“This is extortion!!!”

He wasn’t backing down.

“Call it what you want Fred. The choices, and consequences, are entirely up to you.”

A week later “Hello, Expo for Art, this is Fred.”

“I’VE ORDERED NEW RECEIPT BOOKS AND CARDS. CAN YOU PLEASE STOP THIS GARBAGE!?!?!?!?!”

“Sure. Bye Fred!”

That took long enough!

Fred isn’t too bright to think it’s not a problem to have a phone number on your receipts that is not actually your phone number.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

If anyone else calls, take their order.

I doubt that he wants to get anything framed!

It doesn’t sound like Fred is very good at business.

This person shares a similar story but with a much nicer business owner.

This would be very frustrating.

At least the calls finally stopped!

And they had a little fun in the process.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.