Someone using my phone number - WWYD?

[StripyHorse]

I have had my mobile number for years. It is fairly easy to remember and I have no intention of changing it. But...

Someone gives out my phone number. Initially it was to estate agents (I was getting calls from estate agents due to my interest in flats about 4 hours away from me). I did ask those I spoke to to ask the person to check their number.

At random intervals, I have messages from courier companies alerting me to an upcoming delivery. When I have clicked on the link it is always the same delivery address details.

I don't know whether they have a similar number and it's a genuine error, or if they don't want to receive texts so change the end of their number - the last few digits of my number are an obvious pattern. Either way, it's gone on about 5 years and gets it my nerves.

I have tried contacting the retailers and explaining the situation but because of GDPR they cannot amend the phone number on this person's account - even though I am calling from the number used and I don't want any information- I just want MY number to be taken from their account.

WWYD? I am tempted to mess with the delivery options so this person doesn't get their parcels until they bother to correct their details.
I could wait until the next text and get their address from the link to write them a letter - but this would probably freak them out.
I could of course continue to ignore it, but at times, e.g. in the run up to Christmas, it gets very annoying having a stream of deliveries.

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 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 .

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.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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'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.