You answer a call, expecting to hear the familiar voice of a friend or family member, only to be met with confusion and a conversation that seems to belong to someone else entirely. These tales of mistaken identity calls take us on a journey through the unexpected, where a simple “hello” can lead to laughter, awkwardness, or even the start of an unlikely connection. Whether it’s a case of crossed wires or a misdialed number, these stories highlight the quirky side of communication mishaps and the shared experience of realizing, “Oops, wrong person!”
Had an old guy call my family’s house when I was in high school, and before he hung up after I explained the wrong number, he said “You sound like a smart young man, do you know anything about computers?”
I laughed a little but said what the heck, why not, and helped walk him through installing his antivirus.
He said thanks, I said no problem we hang up.
A month or so later, he calls back and asks for help with something else. I roll my eyes a little, but again, what the heck, and help him out.
This ends up happening once or twice a month from that point forward. I honestly didn’t mind, as he was actually very receptive and cooperative (a total blessing when providing IT support to the elderly) and was super funny/interesting.
As it turns out he only lived a few blocks away, so he started paying me to provide support as needed. He didn’t have any family, so we started inviting him to have dinner with us on holiday.
He ended up coming over for every Christmas and Thanksgiving for several years until he passed away. Miss that guy.
Dude called from prison. After I told him the wrong number he said he had nobody to talk to and he had just dialed a random number. I was young and naive but the dude never asked for anything. We talked for a while, him telling me how he got to be in jail. Straight up street thug but he was trying to make good and get back to society in good shape. Never talked again. I hope he made it out ok.
When I picked up someone immediately went off in a frantic worry about his dog who ran away, now gone for a week. When he continued how he had looked EVERYWHERE I stopped him to mention he had the wrong number.
But out of kindness we talked a little bit, losing a pet is horrible- I know that, and I got to know the part of town where the dog went missing, many miles away, and he mentioned some details about his dog.
Well, I’ll be d*mned when I go to the market later that day and I see a dog begging that meets the description. Now, in my mind, this is utterly impossible. Period.
Nevertheless, I look up the recent call in my phone history and FaceTime the guy.
A few years ago, my wife and I were awakened by a call in the middle of the night. I answered, and on the other end of the line came a loud eerie screeching. I was about to hang up, thinking it was a prank, when it became apparent that it was someone in severe pain. The voice was crying and impossible to understand, so I spent a good amount of time trying to calm them down. The longer I listened and spoke gently to the caller, I picked up on her calling me George. I told her that I wasn’t George, but she should give me his number and I would call him for her. It took numerous times, but I thought I had finally understood the number and convinced her that when I hung up I would get her help one way or another. I immediately called the number she gave me and an elderly man answered. I asked if he was George, and he said that he was. I told him about the call I’d received, and he said it was his neighbor who must need his help. He thanked me and hung up quickly to check on her. Shaken from the call, my wife and I stayed up most of the night hoping it all worked out. After work the next day, I called the number that I’d written the night before to ask George how it turned out. George’s wife answered and told me that they were trying any way they could to find my number to thank me. It turned out that George’s neighbor was a very elderly lady who was very recently widowed. She had fallen on the stairs in her home and had broken her hip and her leg. She had spent most of the night trying to crawl to the phone. She was in the hospital for quite a while. George’s wife called our house pretty regularly for about a year to keep us up to date on her health.
When my aunt got her new landline when she moved several years ago she apparently got an old number for a local phone psychic. She would get calls from people at all hours looking for psychic visions about their future. At first, she got pissed about it and told people they had the wrong number. Then she decided to have some fun.
She would find out a few things about them just by talking with them. She’d then start making up vague exciting things that were about to happen to them. She said people would tell her the most intimate details of their lives – their love life, horrible family issues, their f*cked up financial problems, anything and everything.
They’d ask about payment and she just told them the first consultations were free. People were willing to give her, this stranger on the phone, their credit card numbers no questions asked.
She had fun with it for maybe three months and then it got old. She ran out of stories to tell and just got bored with it. She finally ended up changing her number.
This is the same aunt who loved to play games at Walmart when we’d go shopping together. She pretended to be rich, white trash, recently divorced, middle-aged woman and I was her new boy toy. We’d get in fake screaming arguments about how she dressed too sl*tty while in the women’s wear section of Walmart. It was great fun.
I once had a wrong number call from a debt collection agency, asking for someone I’d never heard of. I’ll call her ‘Jane Doe’. I explained the situation and they just hung up on me – no ‘sorry for wasting your time’, not even a ‘goodbye’.
A few weeks later I got another call from the same number, so picked up and answered “Good morning, Jane Doe’s office”. They asked to talk to her, but I explained that everyone needs an appointment. I offered February 19th, 3:15 pm. It was October. They insisted that February was unacceptable.
They carried on calling and texting every few weeks, and I carried on playing the part of the most obstructive personal assistant imaginable. I mentioned that any money matters should be handled not through me but rather by contacting Ms Doe’s financial advisors – but then refused to give their number, as anyone who is really doing business with Ms Doe already has the relevant contact information.
I carried on being as professional as possible while remaining utterly unhelpful for over five years. Several times I pointed out that they’d been offered that February meeting but refused it. My viewpoint was that if one of them ever treated me with professional courtesy then I’d admit to everything.
I don’t know how much the debt was, but over the years they did offer a settlement for less than $300.
Finally, early in 2017, one of them was polite and reasonable, so I explained the situation and made a few suggestions for changes to training at their company. They haven’t called since.
Every month since my family moved into our new house (5+ years) a tough-sounding Mexican man calls demanding to speak to Raul. We tell him every time that Raul no longer has this number. Every time he responds with something along the lines of “I know Raul’s there, get him on the phone, now!”
Years ago when I was in my early 20s I received a call from a woman and it was a wrong number. She was crying so I asked if she was okay and she said her boyfriend had hit her and she thought her arm was broken. I encouraged her to leave the guy before things got worse, and we ended up talking for 2 hours and had a great conversation.
Before hanging up we agreed to meet somewhere for coffee in a couple of days, but she called me back the next day, thanked me for everything and cancelled the coffee. Never heard from her again. I’ve always hoped she ended up leaving the guy and finding someone who wouldn’t beat on her.
I used to get calls for “Phoebe” right after I got my new number. A lot of calls. I was always nice and let them know they had the wrong number. This went on for two years.
Near the end, I got a call from an unknown number. It was Phoebe! She said she wanted to apologize, and thank me for being kind, and she thinks she told everyone the new number, but if anyone calls, could I give it to them? I said sure, no problem.
Still occasionally got calls. I politely informed them of the new number. One guy was surprised and started texting me about the whole situation. We became friends only over text and still text occasionally to this day. 🙂
“(name of company) this is GingerBeard73, how can I help you?”
*Man sounds like he’s in pain* “JIMMY! This is your cousin Al!”
“I’m sorry sir, this is GingerBeard73 and there is no Jimmy here.”
“Jimmy! It’s your cousin Al.”
“Sir, I’m sorry, there is no Jimmy here.”
“Jimmy, it’s your cousin Al! I’m alive.”
“….sir, is everything okay?”
“Who is this?”
“Al, this is GingerBeard73, you called my business. But real quick, are you okay?”
“Ohhhhhh! Sorry. I was hit by a truck.”
“…..like in the last 10 minutes?”
*Hearty chuckle* “No no cousin, like two weeks ago. I was out with cousin Jimmy and I got hit by a truck walking home. When I came to my cousin Jimmy was gone and I had to call 911.”
“Jesus Christ Al, I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Ohhhh Cousin GingerBeard73, don’t take Jesus’ name like that. He kept me alive when that truck hit me.”
“My apologies Al, I’m just glad you’re okay.”
“Oh, it’s okay Cousin GingerBeard73, I just wanted to call Cousin Jimmy to let him know I’m okay.”
“I’m sorry Al…”
“What’s this Al business? We’re cousins.”
“I’m sorry Cousin Al but Cousin Jimmy sounds like a piece of sh*t.”
“….yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah, he kind of is. Welp, I have to get going, mighty good of you to talk with me.”
“No problem Cousin Al, I wish you a speedy recovery!”
“Mighty kind of you, you take care.”
He hung up after that. He hasn’t called back but I think about my new family member every day.
I got my new phone number a couple of months ago, and this elderly grandmother kept calling for someone named “Kevin”, who apparently drove a motorcycle even though his Grandmother didn’t like it. Fast forward a couple of months and she kept calling me, so I picked up the phone, and I heard “Hello, Kevin?” And I immediately said “Kevin Died In A Motorcycle Crash” To which she replied, “I told him that a motorcycle was stupid!” She then promptly hung up and she’s never called back.
Got a call from a crying lady about 7 years ago. Saying over and over “Mom passed away I don’t know how, do you. ..you were supposed to be there….”
I’m freaking out because she sounded like my sister…AT least through the hysterical crying and talking. After the first two minutes of trying to get a word edgewise to my “sister” she says she doesn’t know how to make it to Marion.
WAIT….who is This!!!! Come to find out not my sister but some poor lady whose mom passed and hysterically misdialed her brother. I was living in Cincinnati at the time and the mom and family…also the funeral was in Marion a bit north of Colum bus.
She apologized and calmed down but by this point, I was kind of drawn in based on the emotional roller coaster so I asked her where she lived and found out who she was….very sad situation so I told her I’d pick her up from Lexington KY and take her to Marion the next day…Saturday. I met some of her family and left. Now for the last 7 years, I have gotten a Christmas card from this sweet lady and she’s come to my home a few times for my kids bdays and my family as well to some of her life events.
When I was 16 years old a woman called my cell and tried to fire me.
She was very worked up, and whatever deadbeat employee she had been trying to call must have been a real piece of work. She was going on about how I never showed up to work, always gave excuses, etc. I kept trying to interject to say “Ma’am, I think you have the wrong number” and she was all “Don’t give me that b*llsh*t, I’m not buying it.”
Finally, I said “Ma’am, I don’t think you understand. I’m a 16-year-old high school student sitting in my parents’ basement. I really think you have the wrong number.”
[pause]
“Oh my God! Sweetie, I’m so sorry to have yelled at you, I hope I didn’t upset you” and all that.
I just wished her well and told her to give the guy h*ll, and went back to playing Call of Duty. Pretty wild.
I got a call at like 6 am, and I was still sleeping so I kind of didn’t understand what was happening- but this person was SO EXCITED to tell me that they got the new job, and they recognized I was still half asleep so they said they’d call me back later, and said “I love you” – I just said “I love you too, I’m glad you got the job”. I absolutely did not know that person and they never called back, but I think of that call all the time.
Ok, my brother got two calls from what sounded like the Polish mafia. The first one was when he was out with friends. He said he got a call from a man with a heavy Polish accent who said something like, “Dimitri, we’re getting impatient. If we do not receive the money within a week, there will be serious consequences. Hangs up” This spooked my brother a bit, but he brushed it off as a very convincing prank call.
The second call came about a week later. It was evening time and our family had just finished dinner. The same man calls his phone and this time we all hear. He says, “We still have not received the money. We have given you enough chances, your time is up. Hangs up“
Now this was serious enough to not be written off as a prank call. Plus it was a fully grown man calling a 14-year-old’s phone, and the accent didn’t sound put on. Also, my brother doesn’t have any Polish friends who could have got their Dad in on a prank, which was one theory we had floating around.
So my mum called the police non-emergency line, and they basically said there was nothing they could do as no crime had actually been committed. And that was that.
I even wrote it down when it happened because it was too weird. December 30, 2012. Translated because it’s Spanish originally.
Phone rings. I pick up the phone and say “Hello?”.
“John?” says the person on the other end.
“There is nobody here living here by that name.”, I said.
“Is this number 1234567?” says the man on the other end.
“Actually no, it’s number 2345678” I say.
“Ah, there’s the error. You shouldn’t have picked up the phone then.”
“Do I understand you correctly?” I said, sure I misunderstood him, “You dial the wrong number but you are saying I made an error because I picked up my own phone?”.
“Correct. But a happy New Year anyway.” and he hangs up.
I sat there, flabbergasted, sure I was being pranked by a friend. Nobody ever came forward. It was the most surreal conversation I ever had.
One night as I was sitting alone in a new dorm room, out of my mind and listening to my headphones, I noticed my nearby phone light up with a new voicemail.
I didn’t recognize the number, only that it was from a city in my home state, just not my city. Being in college nearly 2000 miles away, I thought that maybe someone I knew had moved to the city back home and was trying to reach me. I opened my phone and started playing the message.
“Hi…” An obviously upset woman’s voice began. “I’m outside of your house… I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE… Answer my calls, or I’m going to k*ll your dog.”
I just stared at my phone in disbelief at what I had just heard. Who was that? Are they going to k*ll my dog? I had so many things that I wanted to do like call my parents or call the police, but the first thing I decided to do was to hit the “call back” button under the voicemail. The line rang twice before the same voice picked up with a less hostile tone and quickly said, “Sorry wrong number I got the wrong area code sorry” and hung up. What the f*ck!
In college, I got a call at like 2 am from some guy yelling at me and threatening to “beat my a**” if I didn’t stay away from “his girl.” I had just started sorta casually seeing a new lady friend a couple of days before, but it became clear when he said a name that wasn’t hers that the guy had the wrong number. I told him as much and went back to bed.
When I casually mentioned it to the girl the next day, before getting to the whole wrong number part of the story, she got a shocked look on her face and said “How the heck did (dude’s name) get your number?!” Turns out she had a boyfriend that she was cheating on with me. I politely told her we weren’t going to work out and neglected to mention that it was the wrong number.
Bullet dodged. Thanks, random angry guy. If I knew who you were, I’d buy you a special dialing wand so you can threaten the right dude next time.
The phone rings at 3 am. I just pick it up, knowing it’s bad news. Nothing good happens at 3 am. The conversation goes like this:
Me: Hello?
Him: Oh…this isn’t Tom, is it?
Me: No. You’ve got the wrong number. (starts to hang up)
Him: Wait. WAIT!
Him: I know this is weird, but…I just got on the bus and this is my last quarter. There’s nothing open here. I can’t get change. Would you call Tom and ask him to pick me up?
Me: ……
Me: Uhhh….at 3am?
Him: He’s expecting my call. He won’t mind. Really.
And that’s how I ended up calling some random strange guy at 3 am. Pretty much confusion on his end–mostly because I was female and he couldn’t wrap his head around why his male friend had some random woman calling–but we got it all straightened out. He really was Tom and he really was expecting a friend to arrive by bus.
A lady called me one day and said “Hello, it’s your mother”, the same way my mom always says it. So we chat for 10 minutes and for once she seems to be really listening to me. Acknowledging what I’m saying, very sympathetic and concerned in her short replies so I start to spill my guts about how it’s been so hard for me lately and I’m really just keeping it together for the kids but all I really want to do is run away or die trying. The concern pours out of her telling me I should go see a therapist she knows and how I have been stronger than this in the past and she is spot on about everything.
Then she says “Have you told Teri?”.
“Teri who” I replied.
Her: “Your wife Teri, my daughter!”
Me: “I’m not married to Teri, I’m talking about Tara.”
Her: “Is this Bob?
Me: “No, this is Leafs9999.”
Her: “Oh honey, I’m so sorry. I have the wrong number, but you hang in there and it will all work out. Goodbye” And she hung up. Would really like my mom to actually listen like that woman did one day.
I was working at a major scientific journal as a coordinator arranging for peer reviewers on academic papers.
One day my office phone rings and on the other end is a dude with a very thick South American accent. He said: “hello, is this the scientists?”
“Uhh…this is [Name of Science Journal]”
“Oh good. I have a very large jungle beast. You must tell me what it is.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“I find a large beast in the jungle. What is it?”
“Well, first of all, that’s not at all what we do here, second of all even if it was how would I be able to identify it over the phone?”
“I don’t know – you are a scientist, that is your job.”
“Look, if you’re looking to identify an animal maybe call your local department of fish and wildlife?”
“OK, what is their number?”
“I have no idea, I could try to look it up. Where are you located?”
“OK bye.” and he hangs up.
I guess it wasn’t technically a “wrong number” because he clearly saw the word “science” in the title and assumed we were the right people to call, but how and why he call my number in particular or expect me to have any clue what he was talking about I have absolutely no idea.
I answer the phone at my job. I talk to clients pretty much all day long. The call started something like this:
Me: “Good afternoon, law office.” Him: “Hi, how are you today?” Me: “I’m fine, thank you, may I ask who is calling?” (I know most of my client’s voices.) Him: “It’s me, you mean to tell me you don’t know who I am?”
This goes on for a couple of minutes. I’m like seriously, no, I don’t know who you are now tell me what you want.
Him: “What kind of shoes are you wearing today?’
So at this point, I’m like thinking this is a prank call.
Me: “Seriously, who is this?”
At this point, he’s pressing me about my shoes, about taking off my shoes, asking if I’m wearing socks or stockings, etc. so I am just like “Ok I am hanging up now.”
This happened several more times. Always started the same way. I knew better and just started hanging up on him. It really creeped me out though because I am at work alone pretty much all the time.
Back in the day, when you moved house British Telecom would leave you with the same number as the previous owner. As a result, when we bought a house we had a lot of calls meant for the previous owner, Susan.
After about a year later, the calls had petered out, until one Sunday morning I answered a call from a cheery-sounding old dear who asked if Susan was there.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Susan doesn’t live here any more.”
She sounded confused: how long had she been gone?
“Well, we’ve lived here a year, and I think the house had been vacant for a couple of months before that…”
The old duck had shifted from confused to panicked now: “But I only spoke to her last week!”
It reminded me of those old ghost tales that end with an old farmer saying something like “There’s been no one living there these past fifty years”
It took a little while to calm her down sufficiently to find out she had dialed the wrong number and was after an entirely different Susan.
I got a phone call from someone who sounded like my dad and I sounded like their daughter. I remember answering the phone without checking the ID because I thought it was my friend calling back. The call went:
Me: “Hey loser”
Man: “Hey what are you up to?”
Me: “Dad?”
Man: “Yeah.” He sounded just like my father, who was working that evening, so I answered all his questions (what I was up to, what my mom was doing, etc.) Then he asked where I was going that night. I answered truthfully that I didn’t have plans to go anywhere.
That’s when he got upset and said, “Don’t lie to me CASSANDRA” My name is not Cassandra. That’s when I realized, this person had got the wrong number and we both confused the voices. I told him, “Oh! I’m sorry, but you have the wrong number.” He was amused and thought his daughter was lying to him and said, “Oh ho that’s funny, so who is this then? Hmm?” I responded with my name and he said, “OK ‘-coolghoul-‘. you tell Cassandra she’s in big trouble when I get home.” Sorry, Cassandra.
Middle of the night, the phone rings. I didn’t recognize the number so I let it go to voicemail. The same number immediately calls back, which my family does if it’s an emergency, so I pick up and have the following conversation:
Me: Hello?
Barely understandable dude on the phone [slurring badly]: It’s Bobby!
Me [not sure whether I misheard, know no Bobby]: Sorry, who?
BUD: It’s BOBBY!
Me: I don’t know a Bobby, I think you have the wrong number.
BUD [more insistent]: It’s Steven!
Me [wtf]: Uhh, you have the wrong number.
BUD [almost wailing now]: It’s Mark!
Me [thoroughly creeped out now]: You have the wrong number, I’m hanging up now.
BUD [as I hang up]: It’s Michael!
He kept getting more insistent and oddly desperate-sounding as he tried each new name. Between getting woken up in the middle of the night by a possible emergency and the sheer strangeness of the conversation, I had no idea what to do with that. Never called again.
Usually, I’m the sort of guy who simply informs wrong-number-callers that I am not, in fact, the person they’re looking for… but back when I first got my own telephone line (at age sixteen), I noticed a sudden increase in the amount of misdialed calls that I was receiving.
The reason for this change was fairly obvious: My new phone number, by a stroke of interesting luck, was comprised almost entirely of the number five. While this certainly made it memorable, it also made it far more likely for me to receive calls that had been intended for someone else. I would wind up speaking with strangers about a dozen times a week, and I developed a rather broad repertoire for informing them of their mistakes.
“Hello?” I’d answer.
“Hi,” the other person might reply. “Is Warren there?”
“Who is this?” I’d politely ask.
“This is Emily.”
“I’m sorry, Emily,” would be my sombre response, “but your friend Warren is in another castle.”
Only a handful of people thought that it was funny.
Perhaps the most memorable occasion, though, was also the one that made me reevaluate my telephonic activities. I had been hanging out with my then-girlfriend, attempting to explain the finer points of the terrible song that I was in the process of writing when the telltale sound of an incoming call drowned out my words. With a roll of my eyes, I reached over, picked up the receiver, and handed it over to my girlfriend.
“Um…” she said, eyeing me. “Hello?”
“Hey,” answered the voice on the other end. “Where’s Juan?” Judging by the tone and the manner of speech, the caller was only barely through puberty but was trying his d*mnedest to sound like an intimidating figure.
“There’s no Juan here,” my girlfriend replied.
“B*llsh*t!” the young man said. “I know he’s over there.”
“I promise, there’s nobody named Juan here.”
An affected growl accompanied the next line. “You tell that f*cker he owes me.”
By that point, I’d grown tired of listening to the exchange and decided that I wanted to be more involved in it. I shrugged at my girlfriend, took back the telephone, and did my best to imitate the same high-but-gruff tone of voice being used by the individual on the other end of the line.
“I don’t owe you sh*t!” I barked. “Don’t call here again!”
“You!! I knew it!” came the reply. “I’m going to destroy you!” Despite the apparent anger, there was also a hint of laughter in the threat. Once again, I decided to respond in kind.
“You couldn’t kill a plant, you noodle-armed beanbag! I’ll fight you right now!”
“F*ck you!”
“I’m just kidding, man,” I said, suddenly dropping into my real voice. “There’s no Juan here.” It should have been enough to end the call… but unfortunately, it seemed as though the conversation had progressed beyond the point of no return.
“Nuh-uh!” the young man spat. “No, I’m coming over right now, do you hear me? I’ll destroy you!“
With that, the line went dead, and I found myself wondering if I’d just condemned an innocent man named Juan to death at the hands of a wannabe tough guy whose voice kept cracking.
I got a call one day, I picked it up and a deep soothing voice said “Hello baby it is me, Obama.”
the words got caught in my throat and I couldn’t reply. He gave me an address and said to be there in 20 minutes. I checked, and the address was nearby.
Perhaps curiosity or perhaps something else drew me to get into my car and drive to the location. I arrived and waited for the minutes to pass.
I heard an elevator ding and out from a golden light stepped the one and only Obama.
Me… “yeah you have the wrong number. Me and my kids are on the same schedule as you and your ex though. This is weird.”
It went in a little longer I think but that was a summary of it. We were both argumentative when we thought we were talking to our exes then we laughed about it.
