Getting ready for bed last night I get one of those irritating one ring phone calls. For those who may not know this, in Honduras there are no 2 year contracts where you have an allotted number of minutes per month. Here, there is just prepaid minutes. You only use minutes if the person you call answers. Since everyone has a cell phone but is a minute scrooge at the same time, people call, let it ring once and hang up before you can answer as a signal that they want you to call them back on your minutes ~ not theirs. So anyway, cell phone etiquette is not what this post is about.
Pretty soon I'm getting a bunch of these one ring calls from a lot of different numbers. I ask Papa what he thinks is going on and he suggests that someone is playing a prank. Okay? Then I start getting text messages in Spanish saying things like "how old are you little Alejandro?" and "Why do you live by yourself?" and "I would like to be your friend" and worse, but I'll leave it G rated. Some from men even. Okay, okay...Who the heck is Alejandro? And why are all these people suddenly calling and texting me (him) on a Tuesday night? After laughing at all the messages coming in and the one ring calls I decided to turn off the phone for the night. I really only have two people call me anyway. My husband and my daughter and they were both with me safe at home.
I got some texts this morning and I wrote back to ask how they got the number? They mentioned something about "seeing my message". Hmm?? What message and where did they see it??? Later in the morning a few more calls came in and finally we got someone on the phone. A guy actually. I quickly hand the phone over to Papa who gives the guy some not nice words and hangs up. I tell Papa that we have to find out what is going on! That somehow my cell phone number has gotten out to a LOT of people. About an hour later I get another call. Papa answers the phone and this time it's a woman. He plays it a little cool like he could be Alejandro and asks how she got the number. She tells him from an ad on the local TV station. You've got to be kidding me.
I ask Papa if the message was like a 900 number ad where some hunky guy is saying he lives by himself and to call him for a good time? He said he didn't think so. That it was probably just some ticker type scrolling want ads at the bottom of the screen.
Who's responsibility is it to make sure those personal ads on local Honduran TV are publishing the correct phone number? Should a TV station check phone numbers before they hit the airwaves? You know...just to make sure that it wasn't a number to some English only speaking gringa ~ME!
4 comments:
I'm sorry to hear that happened to you.
Several of the music TV channels in Honduras have a ticker at the bottom where people can send any message they'd like for free. Sometimes the messages are political, religious, or sports-related. But, sometimes they're from lonely teenagers looking for friends, or worse, for casual sex.
Someone might have put up the wrong number (yours) in one of those messages. Or, maybe someone deliberately pranked you by doing it. You can either wait a few days, or, if you'd prefer, change your chip (cell number), for about 100 Lps.
I hope you can clear it up!
That happens...here in Tegus its a fun way of putting pranks on people you dont like...chances are someone doesnt like you.
let a couple of days go by and it will all be over.
Unless someone keeps feending the TV ad on and on and on.
Sorry about your trouble! I enjoy reading about Honduras as I have been visiting there a few times in the last year. I have been working in La Ceiba some. Thanks for sharing!
I completly understand what you went through!
My sister, who's only 15 by the way, had the same problem. She got so mad and scared that decided to get rid of her phone number and get another one.
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