tut tut
"Some people are very rude and they slam the phone down."
Whereas the normal response to calling the wrong number is usually an apology for wasting the other persons time.
A cider shop in Norfolk has had to change its name after receiving up to 24 phone calls a week from fanbois with computer problems. Since an Apple Store opened in Norwich, locals have been calling mistakenly phoning the Apple Shop in Wroxham Barns, with their iPhone and Apple-related woes. Apple Shop owner Geoff Fisher told …
Wrong numbers
"Is that Steve?"
"No, you have the wrong number."
"Are you sure?"
"Hmmmm, let me just check, birth certificate, passport, bank statement, it appears that all of these are in error, and that, yes, as you assert, I am indeed 'Steve' ".
I'd have had some fun with the gullible fools.
"Congratulations! You're our 1000th caller and have won an iPad! Come down to the Apple Store and collect your prize!"
When I was in high school, my parents' telephone number was the same as the local branch of Bank of America except for the prefix... We were constantly getting wrong numbers, and finally my father started responding to the wrong numbers with "Bank of XXXXX, we accept deposits but not withdrawals"... A few months later, Bank of America changed their number, and went to a central switchboard for the entire SF Bay Area... end of wrong numbers.
Some people are just thick. When I did phones support I would get the occasional person that would misdial and get mad at me. Upset that they were on hold for 7 minutes. They would say why didn't some tell me this was not company xyz instead of making me wait.Now while they were on hold the hear adverts about our products and the company name.
"Village retailer changes name of 'Apple Shop' after calls from frothing fanbois"
I would have thought that it was all the people who come in with a hard on for Steve Jobs, that would have been a real pain in the arse.....
"Oh Steve! Oh Steve! iI iLove iYou! iPlease, iPlease itouch imy iApple iMac!"
"iWot? iYou mean iI have the wronge iAddress?"
"iAn, iAn - he's iNot iHere?"
"Damn.... Boo Hoo, and iI just wasted 3 packs of iViagra too!"
Yeah 10 years of the Apple Fanboi bullshit I'd change my iNumber too.
Linux - because iApple iFanbois iSuck iToo.
'Whereas the normal response to calling the wrong number is usually an apology for wasting the other persons time.'
Quite agree - that's how it always occurred to me to sign off such a call out of common courtesy. However, I guess the sense of entitlement that now comes with the fruity device 'lifestyle' (as well as stickers) has permeated such vagaries as manners.
My number once got spanked owing to a balls-up by an unrelated individual from Newcastle. I know it was this area since I took ten calls over a week from the chap's family, all asking to speak to 'Paul' and getting utterly bewildered and frustrated that I wasn't the droid they were looking for.
The final conversation went like this:
Caller : 'Paul?'
Me : 'Nope, it's me. Again. If you keep calling the same number, that won't change, will it?'
Caller : 'Not Paul then?'
Me : 'Still not, no.'
Caller : 'Have you got his number?'
Me : 'No, just because his number is similar, doesn't mean I know him'
Caller : 'Oh right.'
I got one more, during which I offered to BE the mysterious gentleman if it helped. They hung up and at that point gave me a week's sanity break - after which it started again, and I requested a new phone number from my provider.
I had the a phone number that was similar to the local Chinese (swap the last two digits), but only had one prat kept ringing me and leaving messages. Anyway, if I had to give out my phone number to people I didn't want to speak to, I would "accidently" swap the last two digits. Fair's fair, I was getting their calls....
Years ago, on my mobile I would get at least one call a week from some old biddy trying to contact her daughter and dialing the wrong number. Over the course of a year the old biddy was so amused that she kept dailing the same wrong number, while I was getting more and impolite until I snapped and swore at her. Must have done some good, never had a wrong number after that!
Love the quote on the BBC web page:
He said: "My most amusing caller was an elderly gentleman who rang up and the first thing he said was, 'I've been very silly'.
"'I said, what's the problem? He said, 'I'm 87, and I've gone and bought an Apple Mac and I don't know how to use it'.
"I said, 'Well, I'm very sorry, you have been very silly, perhaps you should give it to your grandchildren'."
The village of Knockin, twined with the towns of Fucking in Austria and Intercourse in Pennsylvania
Mandatory use of Paris icon.
Geoff Fisher is one of the nicest bloke you will ever meet! I often visit the barns, usually pretending it's so the kiddies can stroke animals.
The truth is (and not very hidden) that I always pop to the apple store for a few bottles of the driest strongest apple juice on offer. Geoff is a genius brewer, how you can get a drink so dry is beyond me.
+1 to El Reg for promoting one of Norfolks finest
Don't change the bloody name - instead get a local scrumpy maker to do some fanboi themed ciders and up-sell it to the irate and confused callers looking for fondleslab fixes!
I have suggestions for the name of this fruity new scrump; Jobsworth, iPissed, Giz-a-Jobs, Olde Steve, BlowJobs, One Eyed Mouse, FireWire Port, Gooey GUI, Siri-ously Strong Cider (Export Super Tramp Strength),
and last but not least a really poor quality industrially made tipple called Windows 3.1 for Piss Artists!
Nice little shop.
We all jokingly remarked that we were surprised that Apple hadn't squashed them from orbit in some legal challenge (which is kind of a shame that we all thought that as soon as we saw it) and wondered if anyone had been thick enough to call them for Apple support.
We concluded "Well we are talking about Apple users here!"
Oh how we laughed that crazy hot summers day in Wroxham.......
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erm no - he sells apple cider vinegar, apple juice and cider as well as other things.
He's been trading as the apple shop for quite a while, and this wrong number issue was only a problem when Apple opened there palace of glass and shiny shiny a few years ago. The cider that he sells is from the Norfolk Cider Company which has been on the go since 1987.
A better understanding of the Apple shop can be found here Here
"A better understanding of the Apple shop can be found here Here"
Thank you. That's exactly the kind of thing I was looking for that was omitted in the article. Clearly he is not some chancer that just wants to boost his cider sales.
Anyone would think El Reg had missed out vital information in order to froth up the pro and anti fanboys up into a frenzy.
from Apple owners. Intelligence? The common sense to check beforehand?
Of course not. Just an arrogant expectation from some of these people that of course it is an Apple store and noone would dare opening a store with such a name when they sell something that has more right to the name than Apple does.
when stupidity means you cant even name your shop after the product it sells.
Mind you there's a couple of places round here actually called Shop and you cant buy shops in their shops either.
And then that shop that tells you to throw out the chinz seems to only sell paper models of furniture..
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the prior deemed copyright on the word "Apple", long held by the entity known as "God", has been vacated, due to failure to appear in court. Hereafter, all supermarkets and other vendors will refer to the fruit formerly known as "apples" by the new court approved name "elppa".
You can find elppas, elppasauce, and elppa cider at your local fruit dealers and other vendors.
We once had a case study from Toshiba on our web site. We were a software house. The page headings went something like: "XYZ Software" (big text), "Case Studies" (big text), "Toshiba" (small text). This didn't stop some idiot from bitching that we didn't fix Toshiba laptops and therefore were "committing false advertising". Whatever that means.
TL;DR: People. Thick as shit.
I mean, here's a statement that hits the 1920's. Steve wasn't even in dad's bag. New York should be suing Apple.
Typical arrogant American company. "We want to sell to you. Bend over and grasp your ankles so we can serve you."
Apple has no place in the company I work for. We've made it an offence to bring iGadgets into the company (in the US and other at-will countries, a fireable offence), and any supplier that uses Apple products are left standing at the security desk until they give up and stop calling. Apple is not supported by our company because of cr-p just like this.
You should encourage your company to stop taking this type of behaviour. Because we're all in the firing line.
You're not alone, friend. You should do what I do with my company.
When I'm running up a quote for a customer, if during the interview I see them pull out an iPhone or iPad, I add a small percentage to the quote (it varies depending on how devoted to the Church of St. Jobs the customer appears to be) as an "Apple tax". After all, I figure that if they've got money to splurge on Apple crap, they've got money to splurge on our services!
I've made my company quite a few grand extra by doing this. My partners know I do it too, but since they hate Apple almost as much as I do, there is no objection, as long as I disguise the increase amongst other itemisations on the quote sheet!
I had some head of marketing or something sending me invites to corporate events for a while. The first time she sent me an email I ignored it thinking it was phishing, it the second time I sent her an email saying "I have no idea who you are. I would really like to come to your events but I don't think you really want me there"... 6 or so invites later and almost as many "I don't know who you are!" emails in her direction I wrote a reply to one of the invites along the lines of "I have no idea who you are, but I'll be sure to be there, you better bring the cake and lube like you promised" and CC'ed the list of 100 or so bigwigs that the email had been addressed to.
For some reason I'm not getting any invites now. :(