May I Take Your Order?
It used to be that we had a phone number that was very similar to a Pizza Hut, their number was (555)455-5575 and ours was (555)455-5515.
Now, these two numbers are commonly mixed up for obvious reasons. This was back before the days of cellphones and everyone having their own personal number, and we actually had to get a caller ID because of this.
For years we had this Pizza Hut’s client base call our house and order pizzas. The thing is. people WILL NOT LISTEN when you tell them “Sorry wrong number,” we would have belligerent people call back 4-5 times and then begin screaming into the phone “I KNOW THIS IS A PIZZA HUT YOU JERK!” or “GIVE ME THE NUMBER OR I’LL COME OVER THERE.”
This was pretty normal, and the Pizza Hut was even aware of this and profusely apologized when we would call them. It wasn’t so bad—but then our worst nightmare came true. Pizza Hut Corporate then pays for an advertisement on paper, billboards, and in the phone book.
And guess what? They botched the number. They put OUR number on the things as one of the locations in our town for Pizza Hut.
The phone blows up. It goes from like 3-5 phone calls a day to like 100-200. Initially, we were directing people with a message that simply said “THIS IS NOT PIZZA HUT!
THEIR NUMBER IS XXXXXXXX” But it didn’t end. We would get calls with people screaming into the voice recording with all kinds of profanity. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been told to off myself for trying to direct someone to the correct place, and for some reason no one EVER listens.
So, my dad calls into the Pizza Hut and says “Look, all we want is to not have to change our number. If you guys will PLEASE change yours, or pay for ours to be changed, we will stop getting your stupid phone calls.” The manager swore at my Dad, who had him on speaker phone, calling him a ton of names and for “getting him bad reviews,” as well as losing customers to his branch, which is locally owned.
What a joke. It’s costing their business a solid 10 grand EASY over a phone number—why not JUST CHANGE IT? My Dad looks at the phone, hangs up, and says “Ok, you want to be like that about it?” That’s when our whole lives turned into one gigantic revenge plot. My dad instructs my 17-year-old self and my sister to take all calls from now on.
If it rings, pick it up, take the order, and say “Okay your pizza should be there in (1.5 hours)” Then, when they call back, tell them, “Sorry, the driver just left.” If they call back a third time, say, “Well I can get you on the phone with my manager but he’s probably going to beat you up if you keep complaining.” Then, switch the phone with someone else and have them say “Listen here loser, you aren’t getting your pizza and we are keeping your money, get over it.”
Two weeks pass, and my Dad tries to get said Pizza Hut to change our number for free. Never pointing out that they messed up their ad, as apparently they were completely oblivious to this fact.
Again, the manager screams at my dad, saying, “I don’t have the money to change your number!” We even tried calling OTHER Pizza Huts to get the issue resolved, and their corporate with no real luck.
Fair enough, its game time now. Why? For two reasons 1. My dad got a phone with a transfer button and 2. Because summer was rolling around, and me and my sister loved messing with people over this.
It was a really bad influence on us, actually. We fielded phone calls every day all day long, we had friends come over and they loved partaking in the same thing.
We had a general plan. Every other call would get a pizza “delivery,” like we’d already done. On the other calls, we would get them really agitated by talking smack to them and saying, “Okay, do you want to speak with my manager now?” Then, we’d just cold transfer them to the Pizza Hut.
Finally, we got some results. It took six weeks of us doing this and wham! The Pizza Hut closed.
A few weeks before they closed, we got a phone call from corporate, who more or less threatened us with a cease and desist sounded like they didn’t really understand what was actually happening, as it accused us of “stealing their phone calls.” Hilarious.
We called their corporate and explained what was going on, and even played our recordings of talking with them before about the issue and ignoring us.
All they said is “You had better stop! This is AGAINST THE LAW!” over and over. It wasn’t. We didn’t stop. They were aware of what was going on and didn’t want to do anything about it.
A few weeks after the owner lost his job, he called our house and was trying to argue with my Dad about how “bad of a person he was because I lost money, and got my behind beat several times.”
Apparently, we had ticked a few people off so bad they actually went in and attacked him. To this day, it cracks me up that a company can be so oblivious.
Anyone in this position who has any brains would instantly change the number, but not a corporation who has money to sue, and not a middle manager who has an ego problem.