'You told me to sort this out myself, this is me sorting this out': Construction boss forced to move one ton of sand after he refuses to update his phone number

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Jul 28, 2023 11:00 AM EDT

After moving to a new country, this dude kept getting phone calls from random callers. These days, most of us get a few random calls a day, but our phone often lets us know they're robo calls. That way, we don't have to answer them and talk to a robot or someone trying to steal our life savings. 

However, this person had a more complex situation on their hands. They got a new phone number, but the previous person who'd had that number didn't bother to tell his clients about the number change. This was no issue for the previous guy. But it was driving the OP, u/fin008, up a wall. They were getting calls all the time, and had to constantly explain that they were not a construction company. Did the callers understand and accept this answer graciously? No, no they did not. Instead, they were super rude to the OP. One day, the OP decided to just let karma take care of the situation, resulting in calamity for the previous phone number owner. 

Up next, this hotel clerk shared a saga of a crabby guest and her cousin who decided they wanted the clerk to get fired. 

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  • 01
    Font - Don't care about people calling me on your old number? I'll sort it. M OC This was about ten years ago, also English is my second language and I'm writing this on my phone, TL;DR at the end, yadda yadda.. I had just moved to Australia and gotten a new phone, but as it turns out my number was someone else's old number. Every other week I'd get calls by a tradie who wanted to know why I wasn't "on site, mate", or "what I wanted done with building project ABC ..".
    via u/fin008
  • 02
    Font - Every time I explained at length that they got the wrong number and quite often folks on the other end were absolute rude or thought I was taking the p and insist I answered their questions or show up "on site, NOW". I was over it, so I googled my own number and did some digging and eventually found out the guy who had my number before, then his new number and then I called him. I politely explained my dilemma, pointed out that there were two websites still having his old (my now new) num
    via u/fin008
  • 03
    Font - Well, of course he was just as pleasant as most of his contacts and told me something along the lines of "I don't give a f, mate, that's not my fing problem. Get ed, sort your own shot out, mate." Well, the universe provides and so I got a great opportunity to do just that only a few weeks later. I received a call in the early hours of one morning by another disgruntled guy telling me he was early and demanding to know where I wanted the sand put down and how to get in. I asked what sand
    via u/fin008
  • 04
    Font - Very briefly did I think about launching into my explanation but I was tired and over it and then realised the opportunity provided, I snapped back at him with no uncertainty: "Mate, it's all good, dump it all right in the driveway, front of the fence, we'll sort it out when we get there" The guy said: "You sure mate? It's a lot of sand." Me: "Absolutely sure mate, thanks a lot" Him: "Alright then boss" and hangs up. Well, I go back to bed, snoozing for another hour with a big smile until
    via u/fin008
  • 05
    Font - I replied: "You told me to sort this out myself, this is me sorting this out. You can remove the numbers and let your contacts know or not. Totally up to you. Mate." He was fuming, called me a few more choice words, promising to find me and a lot more before we ended the conversation. However the numbers disappeared from the internet really quickly after that and I never got another call again, I still have my number and every time I see a truck with sand I chuckle to myself thinking of t
    via u/fin008
  • 06
    Font - TL;DR: Got someone's old number, tried to ask them to let his contacts know and was cussed out and told to sort it myself. Guy ends up shovelling a tonne of sand by hand and losing at least a half day of labour.
    via u/fin008
  • 07
    Font - EmperorB man +1. Absolute gem, thanks for sharing. Got a little chuckle myself 4.6k fin008 OP Reply Share Welcome, I'm glad I could share the chuckles
    via u/EmperorB*ttman
  • 08
    Font - GreenOnionCrusader +1 I've had my number for over 7 years and I STILL get calls for a local plumbing company. I'm going to have to try this.
    via u/GreenOnionCrusader
  • 09
    Font - Andylanta +1 Pound sand, mate.
    via u/Andylanta
  • 10
    Font - FrankieMint Years ago I got a new phone number and had a problem with FAX calls. Always at 8am on the dot. After trying unsuccessfully to fix this with the callers, I hooked up an old fax machine I had in storage. Next FAX call, I was ready and received a patient's EKG! The calls stopped immediately. I can just imagine some nurses phoning each other: "I sent the EKG, it went through, didn't you get it?" "Nope." "Oh, d where did I just send that HIPAA- protected patient info?" I
    via u/FrankieMint
  • 11
    Product - flexibleflyer404 I loved the grit of your response! 1.5k fin008 OP Reply Share After all that abrasion it was time to load that off to someone else
    via u/flexibleflyer404
  • 12
    Font - punklinux I had something similar happen when I had a landline, which dates this story. Only it was a fax machine calling me. I looked up the number, and it was some medical billing office. I tried calling them to tell them to change their number on their publications, but it was like "I don't know how you are, what gobbledygook you're talking about, and I am gonna put you on hold until you hang up." I'd get 4-5 calls a week with that screeching.
    via u/punklinux
  • 13
    Font - So I started faxing them solid black pieces of paper via a Windows app, with a notice, "Change your number from [my number] to your actual fax number." I did this for months until I just stopped using my landline. No idea if they ever changed it, because eventually I moved and haven't had a landline since 2002.
    via u/punklinux
  • 14
    Font - JuliaX1984 +1. If he actually didn't have the brains to foresee how this would end, I fear for every structure he's built.
    via u/JuliaX1984
  • 15
    Font - Skincare Mermaid Had a similar situation. I started telling people, "Oh, this isn't his number anymore now. I think he's in prison." S got sorted fast.
    via u/SkincareMermaid
  • 16
    Font - areyoukiddingmern This reminds me of a NAR story about a guy whose phone number used to belong to an arts and crafts store. Store owner refused to buy new receipt books with the new number so the guy kept getting calls. Eventually he started making outrageous promises to all of the store customers who called (super quick timeframes for custom framing, super cheap prices etc) until the owner caved and bought new receipt books.
    via u/areyoukiddingmern
  • 17
    Font - BuraianJ86 I've done something along these lines. When I first got my current number I kept getting texts and calls for some guy. Tried handling it normally but that never worked. 1 day after saving the numbers I sent out a mass text to all those numbers saying "so and so must not have liked yall very much if he didn't give you his new number." Aside from getting 1 reply telling me 1 of those numbers was his mother I never heard back from any of them.
    via u/BuraianJ86

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