A long time ago in Canada
Well not so long ago. I still have the same number.
So I had this new phone# and after about 6 months I started getting calls for a produce distributor. My number and their's were off by one digit. Most people were calling to get eggs delivered.
I talked to the phone company and there was nothing they could do. So I called the company and asked if, perhaps, they had published the wrong number on some letterhead or business cards. I had, after all, had the number for 6 months before getting any of their calls. A receptionist assured me, in an awestruck voice, that this was a very big company and she was sure they couldn't have done anything like that.
Well that was so clearly ludicrous I gave up on trying to negotiate anything with the company right then and there. If the receptionist was any indication they were clearly all a bunch of fools.
To this day I enjoy the odd call from one of their customers and I take great pleasure in being spontaneous and letting my feelings out. Sometimes I'm just plain rude, others I just hang up the phone with no response, sometimes the company has gone out of business or I can't understand their accent. One fellow phoned one time with a long and involved story about a delivery of eggs that came with some broken eggs. After listening to this heartrending story and the guy almost pleading to have some eggs replaced I told him he obviously thought he was talking to someone who gives a shit.
That was particularly cruel and heartless and I don't think I've ever topped that one. It was during a particularly bad period when a 5:00 or 5:30 AM call could be counted on 2 or 3 times a week.
Somewhere along the line the calls started to drop off dramatically. I'm not sure what caused it. It couldn't have been the company. They're so big that God is a client and he makes sure everything they do is as immaculate as the virgin birth. Regardless, the calls dropped off and I only get about 10 or 20 a year now.