Radio Station Won't Fix Phone Mix-up, Dad Starts Telling People They've Won Free Cars

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    Font - Posted by u/Swifty-Dog 3 days ago Not the Request Line M Growing up, my family's phone number was 555-5070. There was a local radio station whose request line was 555- 5700. We would get calls at odd hours of the night from people trying to request a song. (This was in the early 1980s, so answering machines weren't widespread.) It was annoying, to say the least. We assumed they were just reading the phone number out wrong on the air. Turns out, they weren't quite reading it incorrectly. "
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    Font - So my father very kindly called the manager of the radio station and asked that they simply change they way they read the request line phone number on air. Unsurprisingly, the manager wasn't receptive to that idea. "We're a radio station. We don't have to change anything," was basically the response. So the next time someone called, my father very excitedly told them they were caller 10...and they had won a brand new car. All they had to do was come down to the station and mention that th
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    Font - -forbiddenkitty- - 3 days ago I worked 911 (emergency services in the US). We had a 10 digit number that came straight to our call center should you be in a different city and need 911 in my city (welfare checks, other agency needing assistance, etc). Looked just like a normal 911 call to us. The local pizza joint was one digit different. They printed up thousands of magnets with our number instead of theirs. We got calls for pizzas for years...
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    Font - hydrangeawolf54. 3 days ago This happened before i was born but our home number was one digit off from a Chinese restaurant. My dad got random calls about ordering takeout. One night, after fielding a few wrong callers, the phone rang again-my dad who had serious anger issues picked up and screaming and cursing at the caller. It was NOT someone craving fried rice...it was his boss.
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    Rectangle - iwantoeatcakes - 3 days ago Your dad is awesome and effective! 62 Reply Share Report Save Follow Swifty-Dog OP. 3 days ago He was a good man. For someone who worked in banking and finance, he was a very creative problem solver.
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    Rectangle - knotpolkadottie. 3 days ago Solidarity! My parents phone number was one number off from the local pizzeria and they printed it wrong on a coupon. My dad would take orders and tell people 20 minutes. They quickly reprinted their coupons.
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    Font - MissPicklechips - 3 days ago When I was growing up, our phone number ended in 8808. The local Chinese restaurant ended in 8088. We got calls for them all the time. One day, someone called back 3 times, didn't believe us when we said they had the wrong number. On the 4th, I just took their order and said "15 minutes." They didn't call again.
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    Vertebrate - SlamMonkey 3 days ago That's funny AF! My dad has the exact same name as a popular criminal lawyer in a city about 45 minutes south of us in the 80s and 90's, apparently the lawyer was a bag of shit cause we got nasty calls about once a month for years an years!
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    Font - CoulsonsMay - 2 days ago My dad's name is the same as someone who taught math at a nearby high school in the 90's. Students would look up his name in the phone book and call us. If they were legitimately looking for math help, my dad, having majored in math in college, would help them out.

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