Article

2002-06-13

'Nah. Y'got the wrong number. This is 912.'

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Posted by Fred Pruitt 2002-06-13 01:23 pm|| || Front Page|| [4 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Poor woman; I hope they changed her number. For a year, in Tallahassee, I had a telephone number that was one digit off from the local IRS office. It would have been much worse if I had got their real previous number.
I can laugh about it now, but it's a bit disconcerting to have a total stranger begging for mercy on the other end of the line. I'll admit; though, that my evil twin kept wanting to take over and tell them to just send me some money...

Posted by Kat 2002-06-13 14:44:22|| [site-essential.com] 2002-06-13 14:44:22|| Front Page Top

#2 Some years ago, the legendary Chicago columnist Mike Royko wrote a series of articles about this. It seems that the local phone company had decided to use an 800 number in an ad campaign in which the last seven numbers were the same as his confidential line for his snitches. Obviously this wouldn't do, so he tried to get them to change it. Too late, he was told, the ad campaign is going forward.

So he decided to do something about it. When some poor schlemp called him (forgetting to put the 800 in front and just dialing the seven digits), Royko would proceed to insult them mercilessly. He'd ask for their ethnic origin. "Why?" the startled customer would ask. "We're the phone company! We need to know!!" Royko would say. If the customer answered, "well, ok, Italian", Royko would tell them that he couldn't help them, they'd have to call Italian Bell. And so on.

A week of this and two columns later, the phone company changed the number. And ran a big ad in the paper next to his column. Apologizing.

So Fred, there's hope here. See, what you do is .... :-)

Regards,

Posted by Steve White 2002-06-13 22:34:23|| 2002-06-13 22:34:23|| Front Page Top

04:22 Emmanuel Goldstein
22:34 Steve White
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15:18 Kat
14:44 Kat