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How can i check phone calls from at&t.com?

Please hope me make these calls stop!

  • Someone has been publishing my son’s cell phone number in ads for some land he has for sale. How can we get him to stop doing this? Plus: I know the guy’s first name and where he works and it’s close by. Minus: He insisted in an email that the phone number was his. My 18-year-old son started getting calls a couple of weeks ago about some land for sale. I googled his phone number and found a Craigslist ad with it as the contact number. I emailed the guy through Craigslist and flagged the ad, noting that it had my phone number in it. (Throughout this I’ve been calling the number “mine” just to keep things simple.) He sent me an email back, saying basically, “I don’t know who your provider is, but this is also my number, so I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I emailed him back asking him to please double check, because we’re getting his calls. I never heard from him and Craigslist removed the ad a couple of hours later. Last week, my son started getting calls again. This time I can’t find his number online anywhere, so we suspect that he’s putting it on a sign somewhere. The calls are really annoying my kid and I don’t blame him. The email he sent was from [email protected]. The business is a place that most likely has an open office we could walk into and it’s less than three miles away. My husband and son want to go up there and talk to the guy. Is this a really bad idea? I’m afraid that the guy might retaliate and publish my son’s number someplace problematic. If they do go talk to the guy, are there any magic words to convince him it’s not his phone number? He’s obviously a couple of Cheerios short of a complete nutritious breakfast, and I am at a loss. Here’s what our correspondence looks like so far: Me, replying to Craigslist ad: Hi! You have my phone number 832-xxx-xxxx in your Craiglist ad. Please remove it ASAP. I am also contacting Craigslist about the mistake. Thank you, Me. Him, from his work email (this is paraphrased): “I don’t know who your provider is, but this is also my number, so I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Me, replying to the above to his work email: Could you check your phone number again please? I'm getting calls on your ad. A phone number can only be assigned to one person. If you're not getting any calls, that's probably why. Thank you, Me. Me again, to his work address after the calls started again: I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm getting calls about your land again. You seem to have put my number on a sign somewhere, at least that's what I'm guessing from the messages I'm getting. I suspect your provider told you your number wrong. Could you do me a favor? Could you please call someone else's cell phone from yours while they are with you? Then you can see what number shows up on their caller ID and correct your sign. Thank you, Me. For what it’s worth, my son doesn’t get other misdirected calls, so I doubt there’s a mix-up anywhere except in this guy’s mind.

  • Answer:

    Yes, your husband and son should go up there and talk to the guy. Nothing malicious is going on, since your son has the phone number, and he doesn't, and somebody screwed up. But for some reason just emails are not straightening it out. The problem has now gotten too complicated for email. A nice friendly meetup should do it, and nothing to be worried about. They'll probably all go out for a beer, if your son is old enough.

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Oddly, something similar has happened to me twice. a) A local medical clinic inadvertently printed my home phone number in their brochure and I was quickly besieged with hundreds of calls from their clients requesting appointments. I eventually tracked down which clinic it was and informed them of their error, which only slightly slowed down the number of calls because there were apparently a lot of these brochures out there. The thing that did the most to stop the calls was changing my voicemail message to "Hello, this is jamaro. If you're calling XYZ Clinic, you have the wrong number, the correct number is xxx-xxx-xxxx. Everyone else, leave a message." I temporarily got into the habit of not answering the phone when Caller ID showed a number I didn't recognize. b) The other time was when a video rental store transposed some numbers and publicised my number as theirs on a huge sign facing an expressway. I informed them of the error, they were jerks about it (something about how they weren't going to change it because much the sign cost them and the sign was more about promoting their name/location...wha?) and from then on I answered calls like so: Caller: Hi, how late are you open? Me, in my best surly video clerk voice: I'm closed. ::click:: Caller: Do you have (latest release) in stock? Me: No. ::click:: Video store changed their signage after a few weeks of that. So, try approach A first and then go to B.

jamaro

My home number used to be one digit off from a local nursing home. Not the nursing home's problem, and I dealt with the misdials politely. Until. One crackhead called repeatedly for her man, who apparently worked the graveyard shift. It didn't matter that I gave her the correct number. (She'd just hit redial.) It didn't matter that I asked her not to wake me up at 3 a.m. (A relative was in a health crisis, so turning the phone off at night wasn't a solution.) This happened every few nights, for weeks. Finally I answered the phone "Nursing Home, how may I help you?" and got the full name of the guy she was calling. Then I called "John," at work, at 3 a.m., and had a little chat with him about speaking to his supervisors tomorrow if I ever got another fucking call from his stoned girlfriend. Worked a treat. It's quite possible that it's an area code problem. Personally, I wouldn't escalate beyond finding out where the sign is (and then possibly removing it) and/or having your son provide no info when he gets misdialed calls.

cyndigo

Overthinking this one. Just say, "Sorry, wrong number" and hang up to everyone that asks. You're not being confrontational, not being misleading, just politely brusque. It is not your problem that the seller put down the wrong number. You don't need to go and see him. The problem will self-correct shortly, without the seller finding out who you are.

scruss

Ask someone who calls you where they got the phone number.

soelo

Forgive me for saying, but you sound a bit hostile in this post, and in your emails to this guy. He is NOT intentionally hurting you or your son. He is trying to sell some land, and either he has made a mistake or the phone company has. It is NOT his fault. (Or yours.) So, approach him in a spirit of understanding and problem-solving, not "there's only something wrong in your mind". You (both your family and this guy) have a problem to solve. Work together, and don't be a dick about it.

alternateuniverse

True story: Years ago, Sprint was my cellular company. When number portability came along, I switched to T-mobile. Took a long time (weeks) for my number to port over, but eventually it did. Many months later, I start getting a flood of calls for somebody else. All these callers are correctly dialing the number they were given. Then I get a call from Sprint. Turns out they had flagged my number as "available for reassignment" in their system, and had given it to some other guy. Oops. The problem was dealt with in less than a day.

adamrice

Have him call the phone number from his work phone. If you answer, he'll be very surprised, but then probably realize that it's a different number. But, perhaps he has dyslexia, as MrZero suggests...

reddot

Go visit? I'm way too lazy for that. Email. Suggest that he try calling the number 832-xxx-xxxx to verify the situation. Change the message to: "If you are calling about land for sale, you have reached a wrong number, and I do not have the correct number." Delete any and all calls about the land. He's trying to sell something, and the calls are bothering you. It's not your job to solve his problem.

theora55

Maybe his number is for a different area code. When people call XXX-XXXX after they drive into your cell area, it goes to your line. So you're only getting people who are in a certain area. But if they called in another area, it would go to him.

acoutu

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