Someone using my phone number - WWYD?

I'm also getting this a lot at work because one of the extensions there has somehow found its way onto a spammers' list. The man the callers are asking for works for a totally different employer (I've been in that department 10 years and the real owner of the number was already there when I started, so if he ever had the number, it was longer ago than that. He did work for my employer until December 2014 according to his LinkedIn, it's possible he had a number that was quite similar to it rather than that actual number as judging by the dates, the two people did overlap as employees).

Since it's happening at work, I've never dared say anything worse than "This is not Company X, I don't know this Simon, please take this number off your call list", although I sometimes feel like it.

I have the same issue as I have a memorable number.

I ended up screaming profanities and texting "f* off" to every text and they eventually all blocked me 😂👏🏻

I grew up with a number very similar to a local dental surgery, but much as I might have joked about booking appointments for people who called at daft o'clock/were rude/kept calling over and over again, I always thought better of doing it since I was registered with that surgery, they were aware of the situation, it would have been too easy to trace back and I might have been removed as a patient.

My old phone number ended in 335 and people would often write it down as 355 by mistake. I'd be standing there watching them filling in a form or whatever, and have to tell them they'd written it down wrong. I'd even get the odd one disagree with me and argue that I'd told them the wrong number. I didn't though, I always said "double-three, five" but still they'd cock it up.

At the moment, I'm getting someone else's texts from HSBC about my mortgage and imminent house purchase, inviting me to contact them urgently. There's no email address or other details supplied, and I'm not going to reply to the text in case it's not really coming from HSBC at all.

I'm autistic. I have to really focus to not put numbers in order. The only phone number I know is my own. However I used to automatically put 0749 etc instead of 0794. I've done it recently and the man I've got my blinds from had to put a note through my door to get in touch.

I’ve had this with email as well and I’m pretty sure it’s deliberate as it is the same person - same name as me and lives in Arizona and it’s happened on and off for years.

I got fed up with it so had fun changing her passwords for a while, but 2 stage verification has put a stop to that annoyingly.

The last time was earlier this year and drove me potty as she was looking for a rental property and signed me up for what seemed
like every local agents database going. I’ve managed to unsubscribe to most of them.

If it's the same number, I would start interfering with their delivery's yes

In the days of area codes an Indian restaurant started up with the same number as my inlaws', but in a nearby town. The inlaws got so fed up with the drunken callers wanting to order takeaways late in the evening they told the callers that the restaurant had been shut down by environmental health.

I get this with my mobile , the only time I bother to call is when it’s about a hospital appt in a totally different part of the country and that has happened on 2 occasions . I get billing advice every month from Virgin and that’s not my bill as I’ve never been with them but despite my best efforts I cannot get them stopped so just delete them now .

Years ago when we all had landlines, my number was the same as an MOT garage, but a different dialling code, though close enough geographically that clearly some people didn’t realise. So I’d get loads of phone calls from people asking if their car was ready. When I was really fed up, I’d tell the caller that the car had failed its MOT and would need a couple of thousand spending on it to pass.

I used to get numerous calls from a bank debt recovery on my old work direct line. They were quite rude about a debt owing and wouldn’t believe it was a business number. We stuck a fax machine on it in the end, just to shut them up.

At one point, I was getting lots of texts from MBNA asking me to confirm receipt of the credit card ending in XXXX that they recently sent to me. I'd never had a card with them, although they did send me lots of mailshots. Whoever had the card never did confirm it, because I continued to get spammed with texts, and I had trouble getting rid of that, because it kept asking me for the credit card number, and since I'd never had the card in the first place I couldn't give it. I ended up finding a complaints email and emailing that in the end. They never replied, but the texts and mailshots stopped.

Another time, someone had my number mixed up with her ex's, and kept texting me about wanting to get back together, I had her drunk friends ringing me one time. She wouldn't have it when I texted back saying she had a wrong number, and kept accusing me of being the ex pretending she had a wrong number - she eventually figured it out, although after a few of her strange texts I could see why the ex might have been tempted.

I get this with my email address - someone in the US must have a very similar one. I get their contact lenses order confirmation and an invoice from their vet for their cat's test results.

I replied to the vet advising they had the wrong email and passed on my good wishes for the cat's speedy recovery and I haven't had any more from them - I still get their contact lenses ones though!

@LovePoppy Amazingly, I find that most companies worldwide have a real working email address on their website under "Privacy". I send the following to them as a reply to their message (substituting their dedicated privacy email address for the "no-reply" one that their message came from)

"Wrong abcde , I'm afraid. I have abc.de @ fgh.ijk and its alternative form abcde @ fgh.ijk - your contact does not. Hopefully you have some other means to contact him to get his correct address. Meanwhile please remove my email address abc.de @ fgh.ijk from all of your systems.

Hardly a week goes by without my fgh address (in one or other form) being registered by mistake with some company or organisation for one of my namesakes around the world.
^^

Kind regards

abc de
lmnop , England"

Mostly they co-operate.

Our local kebab place used to take advance mobile orders, click and collect type thing. They sold up and the new owners didn’t bother changing the number on any of the flyers or ads etc, so the old owners kept getting calls.

eventually the new owners put up a rather exasperated Facebook post apologising because it appears the old owners, fed up with getting calls, started to happily take the orders knowing full well customers would turn up at the shop and be rather annoyed that their order wasn’t prepared and in some cases not even available.
im guessing it spurred the new owners into finally fixing their flyers though 😂

Unfortunately I think you will have to start messing with their deliveries. You’ll have to inconvenience them to get them to stop. Is there an email address associated with these deliveries or just a street address?

I have some guy who gives out my work phone number. I’ve gad the same work number for over 15 years.

What I’ve gathered is he’s a bit of of a deadbeat and he has an unusual last name. I’ve looked him up online and his wife is on their local school board.

Mostly when the calls start up again I explain it’s a business line and I get taken off the call list. It’s annoying but not something that keeps me up at night.

Same here. It went on for years..

I got full details of their financial affairs once. Everything. Literally everything. Their social security number, full name and address, salary, outgoings, date of birth and the mortgage offer....

I forwarded that one to his actual email address and told him he was very lucky I'm not criminally minded as I could have had a field day with all that information.

Funnily enough it hasn't happened since

I get lots of emails on my 'spare' email address for someone in America. For ages I tried replying and asking them to tell their client the address was wrong, to no avail, so now I just cancel any bookings and tell anyone else that I no longer require their services....l

I regularly get whatsapp messages and occasionally phone calls for someone else on my work mobile. I managed to track down why eventually and it is because of a typo on a promo poster for a young amateur boxer. The poster had 6 boxers on it available for fights and my work number was under one of them. Perhaps he has made the same typo a few times.

He is quite an active lad by all accounts and I have had texts from ladies he met at the weekend, I've been added to group chats for lads weekends or vip invites to boxing matches and had a few funny messages about returning prams and phone calls insisting i tell them who I am. 🤣

I had this too with my Gmail address.

V annoying.

Just write to the relevant address.

Changing the subject slightly - years ago, in the days before mobile phones, our landline number was accidentally printed on promotional stuff for a local mini cab firm. Of course we got lots of calls for them. The best was a rather inebriated man who called at about 1am. I politely explained the error, and that he hadn't called a taxi firm. Whereupon he asked me if I had a car, and if so could I give him a lift......

I have this too and it is so annoying! I know so much about this man (including medical information re his low testosterone levels!) through him incorrectly using my number. Worst was when he tried to get a house clear out quote presumably from a comparison type website and I was fielding calls for days. I had thought about contacting the police on non-emergency number to see if they can do anything?

I would say it'll be down to the auto fill in their browser.
For me, about 5% of the time a web site will auto fill my wife's number instead of mine, and I think it's probably saved under a certain kind of phone number that matches up with the fields on some sites.
I suspect they mistyped once and it's gone in to the memory.