Wrong Number Etiquette

Is there an established etiquette for when you dial the wrong number? Like, if you find yourself in this situation:

“Thanks for calling the National Association for Hobo Management. This is Carl. How can I help you?”

“Yeah hi I want a large pizza with pepperoni and pineapple.”

“Sorry, you must have the wrong number. We manage hobos here.”

…is there a particular way society expects you to act? I mean, there are a few ways you could play this. You could, say, apologize for dialing the wrong number. Or you could ask politely if maybe one of the hobos could bring you a pizza. Or, and I’m just putting this out there, you could just hang up the phone.

Last night I talked to a guy who threatened legal action because he had dialed the wrong number. Can we agree that this individual broke etiquette?

Still, I’d love to be on the other end of the line when he calls his lawyer:

“Thanks for calling the National Association for Hobo Management. This is Carl. How can I help you?”

“I wanna sue Brickroad!”

“Sorry, we manage hobos here. We don’t have any lawyers.”

“Oh yeah? I wanna sue you too!”

8 comments to Wrong Number Etiquette

  • SpoonyBard

    Last night I talked to a guy who threatened legal action because he had dialed the wrong number.

    And now I want to hear this story.

  • Dave

    Just yesterday, I had a woman call me several times and eventually accuse me of stealing her mother’s cell phone, because she dialed the wrong number.

  • Merus

    I usually get a movie recommendation out of them if they’ve dialled the wrong number. I’m probably reading my copy of The Game wrong.

  • Elfir

    Collections companies refuse to believe they ever have the wrong number or their targets ever change numbers and other people get assigned said numbers.

    I once inherited a cell phone number that previously belonged to someone with the same first name as me. Now THAT was a pain!

  • Pieemperor

    I think like if someone calls the wrong number you should like ask them a quick random question before they hang up like,”What’s your favorite color” or something else random. That way when they keep calling you can have a possibly very interesting conversation.

Leave a Reply to Brickroad Cancel reply

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>