In which my nosiness pays off

For the past few weeks we've been getting phone calls for a particular person. At first I thought it was just a wrong number. But when more than one company started calling looking for the same name we got a little concerned. I had told them they had the wrong number but then other companies started calling and I thought maybe someone was trying to pull a fast one on us (although logically I knew that identity theft would not be someone using our phone number with a different name, it still bothered me). The other morning we received yet another call from yet another company. I explained to the woman how we had been getting phone calls and I was concerned and asked her who she was from and was this all related. She HUNG UP ON ME.

Then I got pissed. 

So I called the 800 # that was on my caller ID and was greeted with a message saying "Your phone # is listed with an account ending in 8568, is this correct?" which kind of freaked me out but I was still in pissed mode. I just hit random numbers until I got a human on the phone. I explained the situation and it turned out he was from HSBC. He was much more helpful than the lady who just hung up on me. He said it wouldn't be identity theft and that it was most likely an incorrect phone number that this lady was giving out. I asked him to confirm the name and he did and then he even spelled it for me which was so helpful. The name sounded like, well, it sounded like it could be on a terrorist list. But when he spelled it I realized that it was not. He removed our number and assured me we wouldn't be called again. 

Then I got curious.

So I looked in the phone book. And there was someone with the last name living in my town. I figured, what the hell? I called the number and got an answering machine with a woman's voice (the phone was in a man's name). I left a message saying that I had been receiving calls for a Blank-Blank and I wanted to make sure that she wasn't missing out on these calls. Blah blah blah. I tried to make it sound like I didn't want her financial info to be messed up, but really I was just letting her know that if this was the first step in anything I was on to her. I didn't say my name or leave my phone number. Half an hour later the phone ran. 

It was her.

She must have caller ID too. Long story short (too late) she's out of work and apparently in debt and they're trying to track her down and are calling old numbers. She had our number roughly 10 years ago. She said she's been getting the calls too, so I would bet that she's ignoring them and that's why they're calling us! Hopefully it will stop now, but if it doesn't I have her new number to share. 

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