The oddest call I've had in a while
I rarely answer my home office phone, because most of the calls to it are from phone solicitors. I pick up the phone when the caller ID display shows me that someone I know is trying to reach me, and I also answer when the number is local, just in case it's a business or person trying to reach someone else in the house.
Today, I answered a call from a local number, and this is how the conversation went:
Me: Hello.Which I did.
Female caller: May I please speak to Reginald Cooley?
Me: I'm sorry, but you have the wrong number.
Female caller: Are you sure you're not Reginald Cooley?
Me: Yes.
Female caller: Sir, are you one hundred percent sure you're not Reginald Cooley?
Me: Yes, yes, I am, and I'm going to hang up now.
From the sound of the woman, Reginald is in some kind of trouble, and he must be screening his calls.
That said, how desperate to reach someone do you have to be to ask a complete stranger not once but twice if he is sure he's not that person? Does this strategy ever work? If I were Reginald Cooley, would I ever break under the pressure of the second question?
...Nah, I don't think so.
Female caller: Sir, are you one hundred percent sure you're not Reginald Cooley?
Me: Now that you mention it, I'm not entirely certain. I might be Reginald Cooley.
Reginald, dude, if you're reading this, my advice to you is simple: don't answer your phone--and please stop giving out my number.
Posts
4 comments:
Sounds like a collection agency. I suspect that people trying to dodge debt collectors probably do actually cave and 'fess up the second or third time someone asks if they're really them. It's just one more symptom of the poor judgement that got them into that situation in the first place.
You're probably right on both counts.
We've had the same telephone number for about 15 years and for two or three changes in area code (New Jersey is getting croweded between cellphones, faxes, and the like!).
Every time there's an area code change, we get a spike in wacky telephone calls. Once it was because our number was the same as a car service place in a different area code. So, the phone would ring at 6 AM with queries about cars being ready or could so and so drop off their car.
Then there was the series of telephone calls from a doctor's officd about a medical test result and then the series of telephone calls about the unpaid for medical test. Sorry...wrong number (so to speak).
And so on.
Nothing beat what my wife's family had when they moved from California to New Jersey. It seemed their "new" telephone number would get strange calls asking for somebody who lived there. Then there was the visit from the FBI, as their telephone number was found in the address book of a recently-deceased member of a crime organization...Seems like the phone company was too quick to reassign that number!
Those definitely beat my call!
Post a Comment