They Refused to Fix Their Wrong Phone Number—So He Decided to Start Answering Their Calls Himself
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Most people have experienced receiving a wrong number call. But what would you do if you kept getting multiple wrong number calls a day looking for the same business?
That was the situation one pharmacist found himself dealing with during the early days of automated telephone systems.
As older switchboard technology was phased out and area codes became necessary, a strange quirk in the phone network caused calls intended for a trucking company in another city to be routed directly to his pharmacy.
At first, he tried reasoning with them and politely asked them to redirect the callers to the correct number.
But unfortunately, the trucking company’s owner wasn’t interested in helping him.
…So he helped them help him.
Read the full story below.
My dad’s revenge on a trucking company.
My dad just told me a story from when he was in his twenties. This was around the time that switchboard operators were recently phased out and automated systems were taking over to allow for direct dialing.
This happened when he was back in his home country but I will put it in the context of North American phone numbers and cities.
My dad’s pharmacy and a truck business in a different city had the same last 7 digits of the phone number. Area codes weren’t a thing when the switchboard system was in place.
You would just call the switchboard office, talk to an operator and give them the 7 digit phone number and the city, and they would connect you.
This worked well.
When they started phasing it out, they started adding area codes to the beginning of the numbers so that the call could automatically be directed to the appropriate phone in the appropriate city.
So for example:
Dad’s pharmacy in Toronto: 416-555-5555
Trucking business in Ottawa: 613-555-5555
Now when they started automating the system, something weird happened.
If someone dialed both 555-5555 and 416-555-5555 they would both go to the the Pharmacy in Toronto.
That got annoying fast.
And so my dad started getting around 20 calls a day at his pharmacy from people who just dialed the 7 digits without the area code and were hoping to connect to the trucking business.
My dad would tell them the correct number to call and did this for a week hoping the calls would slow down.
When they didn’t slow, he called the Ottawa number and told the owner what was happening:
(Paraphrased)
Trucking business owner: Well this isn’t my fault, there is something messed up in the telephone system.
He wasn’t having it.
My dad: Yes, I understand, but you should still let your people know the right number to call, it’s become an annoyance for me, and none of this is my fault either. I have been directing the calls to you but they don’t seem to slow down at all.
Owner: I don’t care, I’m not going to tell my workers anything.
My dad: In that case you’ll be losing some business.
Owner: pssht, you can’t do anything * hangs up *
He knew how to handle it.
After that, any time a call for the trucking business came to the pharmacy my dad would tell them to do the opposite of what they’d been told.
A trucker calls to ask about directions for his pickup, dad would tell him that the order got cancelled and come back with an empty truck.
A trucker calls to say that his truck got a flat tire and to let the place he was supposed to drop off merchandise know that he was going to be late, dad tells him to come back without dropping it off.
They couldn’t fire someone who wasn’t an employee. Or could they?
This also continued for about a week before he got a call from someone higher up in the city’s political network, something like the mayor’s office:
(Paraphrased)
Mayor’s office: Hey, how’s that shipment coming along and what is the estimated delivery date?
Dad: * swears a bunch * * tells the man calling to **** off * who do you think you are talking to me like this, I don’t want to hear from you again.
He made his position clear.
Mayor’s office: You’ll be losing a lot of business from us, why are you talking to me like this?!
Dad: I don’t care about you or your business. I don’t want it and don’t ever call me again * swears again *
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Mayor’s office: Fine, we will find someone else and lose your number, we will never work with you again.
The calls stopped the very next day.
That worked so well! Let’s see what commenters on Reddit had to say.
A reader shares their thoughts.
Someone shares a similar story.
That’s a possibility.
Chef’s kiss!
If you enjoyed this post, check out this story about an employee who decided to push back against time micromanagement.
Another reader chimes in.
When the pharmacist contacted the owner and explained what was happening, he wasn’t asking for much. He simply hoped the company would inform its employees and customers about the correct number.
Instead, he was dismissed outright and essentially told that the problem wasn’t the trucking company’s problem.
Faced with a steady stream of misplaced calls and no cooperation from the business benefiting from them, the pharmacist decided to stop acting as their unpaid receptionist. Rather than forwarding callers to the correct destination, he began providing instructions guaranteed to create confusion, delays, and missed deliveries.
That was a very smart solution, actually.
Way to turn a technical issue into a legendary petty revenge story.
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