I have a Business phone because I’m technically a consultant. This means that if you go to my contact us page on the main site you’ll discover that you can call me on my (cell) phone and discuss business (and frankly most other things you might like to discuss). However, I would guess that 30% of the phone calls I get are wrong numbers.
In fact I just got a phone call from a very confused woman looking for a relative. She was looking for a gal who’s name I don’t recall. The conversation went something like this:
Me: Randy Peterman
Her: Hello, is [female name] there?
Me: No, I believe you’ve got the wrong number
Her: Is this [so-and-so’s] house?
Me: No, this is Randy Peterman
Her: Well, can I speak to [so-and-so]?
Me: No, ma’am, I think you’ve got the wrong number, this is a business. You’ve called Randy Peterman Digital Research & Development
Her: Well what happened to [so-and-so]?
Me: I don’t know ma’am, I think you’ve got the wrong number.
Her: I’m sorry, I guess I’ve got the wrong number
Well, at least we both hung up the phone not knowing the correct number she was trying to call, and agreeing that she had the wrong number. It kinda reminded me of this (mp3 file, should be playable on most computers post Windows 3.1 and Mac OS IV).
Mp3: not playable on my work pc – which has a sound card but no speakers / headphones.
Getting phone calls from people with heavy accents with a wrong number makes things twice as bad, even worse if they’re not speaking your language. I’ve had people try speaking an asian dialect to me, I just hung up and hoped they just punched the number wrong and don’t hit redial.