I got another wrong number call for a certain art gallery the other day and it reminded me I wanted to rerun this post. This is from 9/21/11…
There's an art gallery in L.A. that has a phone number that's one digit different from mine. I just got a call from someone looking for them who'd misdialed.
I get one of those every year or so and it's no big deal. But some time ago, shortly after I moved into this house and got this number, I was getting a lot of them — one day, more than twenty. Several of the callers insisted they had the right number and I was wrong. They had an ad that they'd received and they read the phone number (mine) right off it.
I called the manager of the gallery and informed him. He checked a copy of the ad and said, "Oh…so that's why it hasn't increased our business any." He was most apologetic and then he added, "I'm afraid it's going to get worse for you. The ad runs this Saturday in the L.A. Times and it's the same ad with the same typo in the phone number."
I asked, "Is there any way you can stop it?"
He said, "I'll check and call you back. Let me have your number."
I said, "You have my number. And all your customers have my number, too."
"Oh, that's right," the man said. "I'll call the Times and see if there's any way to pull or change that ad."
A few minutes later, he called back and said, "They said they'd rerun it next week with the corrected phone number for a reduced rate. They're very nice about this kind of thing."
I asked, "Does that mean it will run this weekend with my phone number?"
He said, "Well, they said that to get it pulled out now, we'd have to pay a large fee."
I said, "I think you should pay that fee."
He said, "Look, I'd really rather not. Do you think you could put up with these calls a little longer? I could maybe pay you a little something to make it up to you. You could tell callers the right number…"
I said, "I think you should pay the fee to get the ad pulled from this Saturday's edition. It's really to your advantage."
He said, "Well, I know we'll lose out on the business but if you could just give them the correct number…"
I said, "No, I mean it's to your advantage to get the ad pulled because from now on, every time someone calls me looking for your art gallery, I'm going to tell them to come in and see our current exhibition of pro-Nazi lithographs."
He said, "You wouldn't."
I said, "Yep. I'm going to tell each caller, 'We've selected the finest works from around the world emphasizing why we must exterminate the inferior races and pledge our souls to the memory of Der Fuhrer. Oh, but you'd better hurry. The exhibit is only up for two weeks and then we have our annual showing of Child Porn.'"
He said, "Look, we can work something out…"
Just then, I got a Call Waiting beep and I said, "Excuse me a second. I have another call" and I put him on hold. When I came back, I told him, "That was someone who wants to attend your exhibit. I informed him the gallery had just been shut down by the police for trafficking in heroin and selling fake Picassos."
He said, "Okay, you win. I'll pay the large fee on one condition. You're still going to get some calls for us for a while. Would you please not tell them that kind of thing? Would you please just give them the right number?"
I said, "You have a deal."
Fifteen minutes later, the phone rang again with someone looking for that gallery. I could tell by the caller's badly-disguised voice (and the Caller ID) that it was the gent from the gallery calling to see what I was telling people who thought they'd reached his place of business. I politely told him the correct number and then just before I hung up, I told him that if my number was in the L.A. Times this weekend, I was going to tell people that they'd reached his gallery and that we had a sale going: With every purchase, a free kick in the groin and a mandatory enema.
The ad was changed. Sometimes, wrong numbers can be such fun.