Posted on 10/03/2020 10:53:24 AM PDT by fwdude
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204012004577070122687462582
Until 2002, Nanpa [North American Numbering Plan Administration] issued carriers 10,000-number blocks. But as mobile-phone use became pervasive, carriers quickly snapped up more blocks, accelerating the race toward what the industry calls "number exhaustion"—the day when every possible number is taken. Now, Nanpa doles out numbers in blocks of 1,000, and telecommunications experts estimate North America won't run out of phone numbers until 2040. (There's no plan yet for what happens after that, though Nanpa says it's studying options.)Nanpa releases as many as 30 million never-before-used numbers each year, but carriers can only get them after they have assigned 75% of their inventory and are six months away from exhausting their supply.
The next time someone calls speaking Spanish I’m going to identify myself as an officer of ICE. Maybe that will stop it.
I deal with this problem by saying “ Hello, did you know Jose? This is Detective Jones from the Sheriff’s department. Can you please come down and identify Jose’s body?”
I did pretend to own the property the were calling about, and I told them that the price was cut recently to a bargain $1.5 million. That usually silences them.
Text them back and say “Petra can’t come to the phone right now. She’s performing oral sex on me.”
Years ago our number was one digit off from a U-haul. Hundreds of calls and many requests to the shop to change their number, we just started accepting reservations. So many P/O'd customers showing up to find they had no truck waiting convinced them to make the change;)
> Change your phone number
Just don’t change it to 867-5309!
Especially if your name is Jenny.
An Urban Legend had a guy constantly being called by people who wanted to talk to "Sally". Nothing could convince the caller(s) that it was a wrong number.
Finally, in desperation, the callee said, "You just missed here! The Sheriff took her and the rest of the girls off a few minutes ago!". The calls stopped.
"You've contacted a murder scene, stay on the line" Frigging hilarious.
+. Very good.
Something somewhat similar happens on my cellphone. I get text messages about once or twice a week addressed to an unusual-sounding female Hispanic name. They talk about real-estate transactions. I just delete them.
Deleting them doesn’t solve anything is my point.
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