Call Jack Back

[ShadyCavalier]

This sort of happened to me, but it is more the story of a friend of mine, whom I shall call S.

A few months ago S messaged me to ask if I knew anyone called "Jack".

Despite it being a common name, I told said friend that I didn't know anyone named Jack. Jack apparently phoned S up asking for [name similar to girl I DO know] and told S that he'd met him at a party in a town the other side of London. He also knew S by name.

Now, S does like to drink, but swears that he doesn't recall going to this party or meeting anyone called Jack. It's also odd that Jack was asking for someone with a very unusual name - a name very similar to somebody I DO know.

S has a very common name, and it could be sheer coincidence.

I'd be intrigued to find out who Jack is, though, but S doesn't seem interested in calling Jack back to find out...

 

[living-in-ithilien]

fishing expedition

 

[gattino]

This story is ringing bells..a certain similarity to a tale told on these boards in the last year or two. My recollection is very vague but it also involved someone approaching (or being approached by) an individual , swearing they knew them from such and such a party though the other person had no idea who they were...and then..god I wish I could remember the details...this "in the past" encounter referred to actually played out weeks later.

 

[Peripart]

This story is ringing bells..a certain similarity to a tale told on these boards in the last year or two. My recollection is very vague but it also involved someone approaching (or being approached by) an individual , swearing they knew them from such and such a party though the other person had no idea who they were...and then..god I wish I could remember the details...this "in the past" encounter referred to actually played out weeks later.

I remember that, but I'm finding it hard to recall what thread it was in, not least because a part of my brain remains convinced that this thread is entitled "Call Jack Black".

 

[Moth In Relay]

Me too - I vividly remember the story, but keep thinking Jack was the person with the party. Was it John maybe? Was the girl Sarah?

 

[Shady]

I read it recently and cant remember the thread, he said hello to the girl, who he said he knew from someones party, she said she had never met him or knew the person he was speaking of, then he met her at the said persons party

 

[chris138]

I too remember this story and twice today I have searched the IHTM forum with keywords to no avail.

 

[Lb8535]

Someone replied on that thread that maybe the girl was recruiting for a coven.

Only among the Forteans.

Anyway, I once had a long and reasonable talk with someone who it turned out had the wrong number.

 

[Rosebud]

Was it this one?

http://forum.forteantimes.com/index.php?threads/time-distortion.19580/#post-1570976

 

[gattino]

That's the one!

 

[escargot]

I once had a long and reasonable talk with someone who it turned out had the wrong number.

There's a famous Jewish joke about that.

 

[gattino]

I once had a long and reasonable talk with someone who it turned out had the wrong number.

Years and years ago I answered the phone and heard the familiar voice of my mum's sister Pat "Is your mum there? It's Pat".
I hand her the phone "It's your Pat".
My mum takes it...."Hiya" says Pat "I said I'd ring didn't I"
I then hear my mother respond to a presumed how have you been with a 10 minute dissertation on how "it's this toilet business gets me down" and discussions of her battle with constipation, before there's a pause...and then..."oh..ok..no problem..sorry about that"

It was a wrong number.

 

[Iris]

When my eldest was still at home she answered the phone one night and talked for about half an hour.
When we asked who had rung she told us it was a wrong number.

 

[Shady]

I had a chat with a woman about picking up a chair and settee, she said she had just bought a new one and that i had dialed a wrong number, i paused for a while and said 'So, you dont want it then' She just laughed

Another one phoned and asked if there was a 'Mr Walls living there?', i said 'No', they asked if a 'Mrs Walls lived there?', i said 'No', they asked 'If there was any Walls there at all?', i said 'No', they said, 'So how is your roof stopping up then?', then i heard laughter, i told em to F off

 

[JamesWhitehead]

About twenty years ago, I used Loot, the free ads paper to advertise twin beds that had been left in my house by the previous owners.

I got several strange calls from a chav-type male voice, asking if I had any other things, like dirty clothes (!) he could have for free. In the background a woman was giggling away. I pictured them off their faces on white cider. One evening this nuisance caller rang several times and I took the phone off the hook.

Fast forward two or more years and I took out some free ads in the Evening News to sell some pianola rolls and sheet-music. Damn me, if the same pair of sods didn't plague me again with exactly the same weird script: didn't I have any dirty clothes they could have for free? Again, the calls were repeated and the number withheld.

Did they have endless time and money for this moronic game? How many people were they calling? Had they been giggling at their own wit for two years? There were hundreds of free ads in those pre-Ebay days so I don't know how mine got chosen unless they were making their calls in vast numbers.

Edit
When I mentioned this to a friend, she suggested a solution, of sorts. She thought it likely the pranksters were bored employees of the papers, manning the phonelines. If so, it doesn't sound as if their outgoing calls were "monitored for quality and training purposes!"

 

[LittleBat]

I have a slightly similar story from Facebook. I, my sister, and a young lady friend E. - a glamorous girl - met for dinner at a restaurant on an open terrace during a busy summer evening. There were a fair few people around, and our young friend is a noticeable girl. But we did not notice anyone hovering around us.

We talked of various things, including the dark rumours around Belangalo State Forest in Aust - the site of a number of cases of serial killing.

The next day, my sister got a friend request on FB, by someone with a name which looked like a variant of our friend's name. Instead of her family name it said "DeWolf." Same first name - and it is an unusual one. My sister asked me - is this a prank by E.? I asked her, and she said, no, I have sent no friend request, and I don't have any other FB accounts, especially not with such a creepy name. Then the "Wolf" account was deleted.

Weird! Did someone see us having dinner, pick up E's name, and work out this extraordinary stunt? But it seems impossible. Esp as the restaurant booking was in my name, and my sister has a different married name. So I don't know how they would get hold of any of us.

 

[Flapjack]

So, I met this guy at victoria bus station back in 95. He knew me, my name also who I was dating at the time. I, on the other hand, didn't have a bloody clue who he was. It bugged the hell out of me for weeks. I just had no idea who this guy was even though he knew intimate details of my life. Ok scroll forward to the millenium, news years eve.

I was working as a health care assistant in the A an E department pulling a night shift. (my luck sucked back then) Anyway this drunk guy was bought in he'd been beaten up.

I recognised his face, it was the guy from victoria station. He also had no idea who I was I spent the night looking after him chatting about trivial stuff, life, love etc etc.

I told him I'd met him before in London, but he got quite agitated as he'd never been to London before. But his twin brother had lived there back in the 90's I said wow it must of been him then, he asked about the year I'd met him, 95 I said. He proper started shouting at me telling me his brother had died in 92, so who the boody hell did I meet?

 

[Zeke Newbold]

About twenty years ago, I used Loot, the free ads paper to advertise twin beds that had been left in my house by the previous owners.

I got several strange calls from a chav-type male voice, asking if I had any other things, like dirty clothes (!) he could have for free. In the background a woman was giggling away. I pictured them off their faces on white cider. One evening this nuisance caller rang several times and I took the phone off the hook.

Fast forward two or more years and I took out some free ads in the Evening News to sell some pianola rolls and sheet-music. Damn me, if the same pair of sods didn't plague me again with exactly the same weird script: didn't I have any dirty clothes they could have for free? Again, the calls were repeated and the number withheld.

Did they have endless time and money for this moronic game? How many people were they calling? Had they been giggling at their own wit for two years? There were hundreds of free ads in those pre-Ebay days so I don't know how mine got chosen unless they were making their calls in vast numbers.

Edit
When I mentioned this to a friend, she suggested a solution, of sorts. She thought it likely the pranksters were bored employees of the papers, manning the phonelines. If so, it doesn't sound as if their outgoing calls were "monitored for quality and training purposes!"

Delicious story!

Did you put a name to the adds? Could it be that, to some people, there is some kind of pun to be made from your name...or pop culture reference... maybe to do with dirty clothes? (Or the name of your house or street name?)

The two year gap between the calls seems somewhat excessive. Might you have just mis-remembered this part of it?

In any case, the bored employees hypothesis seems hard to give credence to. Not all employers monitor outgoing calls, but almost all of them keep an eye on the volume -and direction -of calls made from their office phones. So those pranksters would have had some explaining to do if they had rung a private number several times in one evening.

 

[JamesWhitehead]

Did you put a name to the adds? Could it be that, to some people, there is some kind of pun to be made from your name...or pop culture reference... maybe to do with dirty clothes? (Or the name of your house or street name?)

No name was given and no address. While I can't remember the exact dates and made no contemporaneous notes, I do recall the fact that two different free-ads papers were involved. In each case, I had probably sent in several ads under various classifications - most of them got no replies. I do remember the ads that provoked the prank calls as ones which did find buyers soon after. The beds were "priced to sell" as they had spongy, inexpensive mattresses but they were nearly new-looking and would have gone to the tip otherwise. I certainly wasn't selling my dirty clothes though I gather that can be a real money-spinner. I was actually reminded of this story when I stumbled across such ads on Craig's List the other week.

As for the culprits, my own impression, based on their voices and manner, was that they were drunk, unemployed and probably unemployable. When I had put the phone down on the male speaker, the female would ring with a silly "refained" introduction, before going back to the dirty clothes spiel. At one point it was expanded to "clothes or any dirty stuff, know what I mean, like?" Still, the object was obviously their own amusement rather than any serious wish to obtain drugs or other dodgy things. I didn't know anyone who sounded anything like them or with the kind of humour that could lead to such a prank.

When it comes to puns to be made on my name. I have learned not to do "vanity searching" on Google. A number of advertisers spot my surname and generate personalised pages to tempt me to buy their acne cream!

 

[Naughty_Felid]

So, I met this guy at victoria bus station back in 95. He knew me, my name also who I was dating at the time. I, on the other hand, didn't have a bloody clue who he was. It bugged the hell out of me for weeks. I just had no idea who this guy was even though he knew intimate details of my life. Ok scroll forward to the millenium, news years eve.

I was working as a health care assistant in the A an E department pulling a night shift. (my luck sucked back then) Anyway this drunk guy was bought in he'd been beaten up.

I recognised his face, it was the guy from victoria station. He also had no idea who I was I spent the night looking after him chatting about trivial stuff, life, love etc etc.

I told him I'd met him before in London, but he got quite agitated as he'd never been to London before. But his twin brother had lived there back in the 90's I said wow it must of been him then, he asked about the year I'd met him, 95 I said. He proper started shouting at me telling me his brother had died in 92, so who the boody hell did I meet?

In the job don't do personal stuff. Good story.

 

[ShadyCavalier]

I remember that, but I'm finding it hard to recall what thread it was in, not least because a part of my brain remains convinced that this thread is entitled "Call Jack Black".

That would be deliciously creepy, but I've lurked through most of the old IHTM threads and seen nothing of that name.

Unless I have and my subconscious remembers but I don't...

 

[ShadyCavalier]

About twenty years ago, I used Loot, the free ads paper to advertise twin beds that had been left in my house by the previous owners.

I got several strange calls from a chav-type male voice, asking if I had any other things, like dirty clothes (!) he could have for free. In the background a woman was giggling away. I pictured them off their faces on white cider. One evening this nuisance caller rang several times and I took the phone off the hook.

Fast forward two or more years and I took out some free ads in the Evening News to sell some pianola rolls and sheet-music. Damn me, if the same pair of sods didn't plague me again with exactly the same weird script: didn't I have any dirty clothes they could have for free? Again, the calls were repeated and the number withheld.

Did they have endless time and money for this moronic game? How many people were they calling? Had they been giggling at their own wit for two years? There were hundreds of free ads in those pre-Ebay days so I don't know how mine got chosen unless they were making their calls in vast numbers.

Edit
When I mentioned this to a friend, she suggested a solution, of sorts. She thought it likely the pranksters were bored employees of the papers, manning the phonelines. If so, it doesn't sound as if their outgoing calls were "monitored for quality and training purposes!"

Probably someone who knew you putting on an accent, no?

 

[ShadyCavalier]

I have a slightly similar story from Facebook. I, my sister, and a young lady friend E. - a glamorous girl - met for dinner at a restaurant on an open terrace during a busy summer evening. There were a fair few people around, and our young friend is a noticeable girl. But we did not notice anyone hovering around us.

We talked of various things, including the dark rumours around Belangalo State Forest in Aust - the site of a number of cases of serial killing.

The next day, my sister got a friend request on FB, by someone with a name which looked like a variant of our friend's name. Instead of her family name it said "DeWolf." Same first name - and it is an unusual one. My sister asked me - is this a prank by E.? I asked her, and she said, no, I have sent no friend request, and I don't have any other FB accounts, especially not with such a creepy name. Then the "Wolf" account was deleted.

Weird! Did someone see us having dinner, pick up E's name, and work out this extraordinary stunt? But it seems impossible. Esp as the restaurant booking was in my name, and my sister has a different married name. So I don't know how they would get hold of any of us.

Maybe it's the killer