When it comes to wrong telephone numbers, when I receive the calls, I had originally adopted a policy of blocking the number if I received said call from the same number twice and neither time was left a message. Now, however, with the influx of robocalls, I pretty much just block any number I don’t recognize that doesn’t leave a message. I think I get more robocalls than spam email these days.
While the majority of these robocalls were scams, and admittedly I’ve called these numbers back and yelled at people for fun, there was a time when I was receiving calls with the caller asking for a Dustin Werner. At the time I had figured these were bill collectors and had given up on the calls ever stopping, because once a debt is sold, the new debt collection company will never stop calling. But on one occasion, someone left a message, and apparently Dustin Werner had missed his court date with the Toledo Municipal Court. This intrigued me.
From 1999-2007 I was a Toledo resident, and my cell phone’s area code is still from Toledo, so I concluded that my phone number was simply in a wrong record somewhere. At the time I received this call, and thereafter having a narrowed range of focus, I Googled this name and found the general profile of a man not terribly versed in contributing to society: something about drugs and theft. Ohio, am I right?
Fast forward to today. Recently I got a rapid batch of robocalls, and this reminded me of good ol’ Dustin. Out of renewed curiosity, I checked Google again. It had been a while, as the articles, courtesy of the Toledo Blade, were dated 2014. Apparently he had been arrested at a Kroger not far from my mom’s house, and has since been sentenced to 4 years 11 months. It looks like I have at least a couple more years before the calls start up again.
–Simon