Everyone has probably gotten a call from a wrong number at some point, but what would you do if you got lots and lots of wrong number calls from people trying to make appointments at a specific business?

The man in this story was in this exact situation, and he was really sick of all the calls.

Eventually he thought of a clever way to solve the problem.

Let’s see what he did.

You want an appointment with me? Sure!

This happened a few months ago but the problem had been going on for years.

Every other month, I would get a text message from someone asking for a doctor or to make an appointment.

I started off immediately informing them they’ve got the wrong number.

Hey, it happens.

When it started happening more frequently, I dealt with the minor annoyance by trying to have some fun.

He started with a clever made up doctor name.

‘Is Dr. Lee available?’

Me: ‘There’s no Dr. Lee here. Only Dr. Wong. Dr. Wong Num Ber.’

It was funny until the volume of messages started increasing and I got annoyed.

He understands why he keeps getting so many calls for this clinic.

A quick Google search led me to the clinic’s page.

Their number was indeed easily mistakable for mine. Theirs ends with ‘-013’ and mine with ‘-073’. And the font used certainly made it worse.

I called the clinic to inform them of this problem and that they needed to do something about it.

Change the font, spell the numbers out, or even change their number.

I just wanted the messages to stop.

The lady he talked to wasn’t very helpful.

The lady just brushed me off and said there was nothing she could do.

I asked to speak to someone in charge but was denied.

She told me to change my number or just ‘deal with it’.

So here comes the part where I dealt with it.

He started pretending to schedule appointments.

After an odd month of peace, I received several messages over a week asking to make an appointment.

‘Hi, I would like to make an appointment please.’

Me: ‘Sure. The next available slot is next Friday at 10. Would that work for you?’

I made very sure never to claim that I represented the clinic.

If anyone asked for a specific doctor, I would say there is no such person here, and if they did ask for the clinic I’d inform them they got the wrong number.

Basically, I had myself covered and I tried to have everyone’s appointment at the same time.

He had a good comeback ready for anyone who complained.

When Friday came around, I received several angry replies from those people and a call from the clinic.

(messages went generally like this)

‘You’re a terrible person! Why would you do this to waste my time? Why did you pretend to be the clinic?’

Me: ‘I’m sorry ma’am but I run a PC repair service.(except I don’t take appointments via sms nor is my personal number listed).

I was expecting you at 10 but you didn’t show. If you looked at your message you never asked if I was the clinic and I never claimed to be.’

The lady from the clinic called him too.

(And the call went like this. CL: clinic lady)

CL: Hi, who is this? Why did you pretend to be us and arranged for all these appointments?

Me: I called you months ago letting you know about this but you told me to deal with it.

So I set appointments up for them to see me. It’s not my fault they showed up at your door.

Maybe you should change your phone number. i hang up

Sure I felt a little bad I made those people travel to the clinic but I‘ve since stopped receiving messages from random people and after checking on the clinic’s site, they now have an online appointment making system.

She did tell him to “deal with it,” and that’s just what he did!

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This is an interesting life lesson.

This person shares a similar story.

In the long run, he helped the patients.

This is a good point!

The clinic lady should’ve listened!

Sometimes you have to be creative to get people to understand there’s a problem.

What else was he supposed to do?

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.