A Tough Call(back)

I work in internal support for a retail company. This team is exclusively internal support; we have no contact with the outside world for all intents and purposes regarding our support. One day, I get a call.

Me: “[Company] service desk, this is [My Name]. Can I get your [Employee Identifier]?”

Caller: “I have no idea what that is, but you guys called me.”

Me: “Um, do you work for [Company]?”

Caller: “No, but you called me.”

Me: “Sir, we did not. If we call out, we don’t call customers; we do leave voicemails, and we don’t call personal numbers first. Did you get a voicemail?”

Caller: “Well, someone from this number called me.”

Me: “You may have gotten a call from someone who spoofed our number. We don’t call customers.”

Caller: “So what kind of store are you?”

My brain tries to blue screen…our store is fairly popular and has been around for over a hundred years. We have stores in almost every state in the US, so the caller would have to have seen a storefront at least once, even if he’s never shopped here.

Me: “Um, this is [Company].”

Caller: “Okay. And what kind of store are you?”

Me: “[Company] is a shoe and clothing retailer.”

Caller: “And why did you call me?”

Me: “Did you possibly apply to work here?”

Caller: “I’ve never heard of you.”

Me: “Did you receive a voicemail?”

Caller: “Someone from this number called me!”

Me: “Sir, this is tech support. We do not call non-employees. If we do call employees, we leave voicemails, and we have other methods of internal contact that we use before we call personal numbers. If you didn’t apply to work for us and are waiting for contact from HR, it sounds like you got a call from someone who spoofed our number.”

Caller: “So what store is this again?”

Me: *Head-desk.*

I (hopefully) finally got him to understand that we hadn’t called him, and he ended the call. I’m still not sure if he was hoping he could scam me with something, if he had applied to a job and apparently forgot about it (wouldn’t have been us anyway, but I could have transferred him to HR), or if he was really that clueless.