Persistent wrong-number callers from Puerto Rico

So here’s the important information here – I don’t speak Spanish. I speak a lot of languages, but Spanish is not one of them.

I’ve been getting these calls for months now from some company – I believe the code is for Puerto Rico. They call at all hours, on my CELLPHONE, wasting my minutes. They want to speak to someone called Andrea. It’s not my name, and I don’t know anyone by that name. They call everyday.

For the first few weeks I tried saying “no habla Espanol, wrong number, no Andrea here” at first politely, then increasingly loudly as my frustration grew.

Then I found a business Spanish lesson online which I played back for them: “You have the wrong number. There is no Andrea at this number” (in Spanish).

Finally one day I spoke to someone who spoke English. “We’re very sorry,” he said, “it will take a couple of weeks to get your number off our database, but we will try not to call you again”. Couple weeks my ass.

And the only difference that made, was that they started calling me at SIX THIRTY A.M.

That is seriously uncool, man. Nobody calls anyone at six thirty.

So I labeled their number “wrong number”, and I turn my phone on silent at night. So they now leave long – and I mean really long – messages on my voicemail. I don’t know what they’re saying, obviously. But my voicemail message has my name on it. There’s always a live person at the other end, so you would think they would realize, when they hear my name, that there’s no frickin’ Andrea at this end. But noooo. I get this long message in Spanish.

I don’t want to turn my phone off, y’know. It’s not what I do, though it looks like I might have to. So they’re forcing me to change my phone habits, which really pisses me off.

I’m going to ask a friend of mine to listen to those messages and tell me what they’re saying. I surmise they’re some sort of collection agency, since they’re calling with such dedication.

Oh yeah, I’m on the Do Not Call Registry. Haven’t been on for quite one month (my cellphone disappeared off it and I had to re-register), but as soon as I am I’m going to complain.

In the meantime, here’s the number they call me from:

787-625-2082

- If you want to call them a few hundred times a day, give them a message, or tell me who’s calling me.

And no, I don’t think I can block the calls with my cellphone plan. AT&T, are you listening? We need to be able to block calls. It’s a critical privacy feature that needs to be free. Catch up with what the rest of the world is doing vis-a-vis cellphones.

Somebody help me. Please.

Update: Apparently, they’re bill collectors. I don’t know why they have my number. When I find out, if I find out, there will be some yelling at some people.

Update #2, 5 Dec 07:

So here’s the last conversation I had. I don’t speak Spanish, so I’ll indicate those parts of it with [...], okay?

Caller: [...] Andrea [....................................]?

Me: No habla Espanol. Do you speak English?

Caller: No. No English.

Me: Okay. I’m going to try anyway. What is your name?

Caller: [...............]

Me: (thinking, “oh dear, my Spanish isn’t good enough even to catch names, I suck”) Where are you calling from?

Caller: Banco San[.......]

Me: Banco what?

Caller: Banco (Santardes? I didn’t catch it again).

Me: Hmmm. Okay. Please listen carefully. You have the wrong number. No Andrea aqui. You call me again, I’ll call the police or something. Wrong number. Okay?

Caller: Si. Gracias. *click*

Me: Dammit.

So I turned my phone off last night. So far so good. But I bet you they call again. I’m just waiting till I can complain to the FTC. I’m also going to try the State Attorney General’s office for Consumer Complaints, because you know what? There’s a state law against anyone calling you before 8 am and after 6 or something. Definitely before 8 is a no-no.

Have a nice day!

Update Dec 13 2007: I’ve been turning my phone off at night since then, and so far no more calls. I’m adopting a wait-and-watch policy.

Ho, ho, ho!

Except you can’t say that anymore, because “ho” is a bad word. No, it’s true. Santas in Sydney have been asked not to say “ho, ho, ho” but to say “ha, ha, ha” instead, because “ho” is a bad word. Check it out.

They’re afraid women will be offended, or something. Now whoever thought this up – I’m a woman, and I’m not offended. Oh, it was offensive when Don Imus said it, and it’s offensive when men put it into songs to use as the generic word to index women, but it’s not offensive when Santa says it. Really. Because it’s a different word, geniuses, with completely different sociolinguistic denotations and connotations. One is a shortened, misspelt, and indolent version of a word for prostitutes, and the other is an onomatopoeic description of laughter. They’re not connected, except that they’re homonyms. (Homophones? Homographs? It’s all so confusing.)

And the other stellar piece of logic is that children will be corrupted by exposure to this offensive word. Well, hell. What next? Should we start calling the little round things we play games with something other than balls because that word is also used to refer to testicles?

Oh, and while we’re about it, let’s find a new name for Homo erectus, because no juvenile anthropology student has EVER passed up the chance to snigger about that one.

In fact, let’s just do away with the genus Homo, because someone might find it offensive. And perhaps not homonyms, graphs, or phones either. Also because they have “ho” in them.

Language can be extremely harmful, true. It can be damaging. It is highly ideologized and can be used to oppress and offend. Changing language so it is more egalitarian and not denigrative is a worthy exercise, and an established form of social resistance.

Doing something like this, though – it tumbles willfully into the realm of the ridiculous, and does a disservice to more legitimate forms of language resistance.

Ho, ho, ho!