What do you do when the ghost of your phone number’s previous owner won’t leave you alone? Back in 2012, one unlucky person found out the hard way. They’d just activated their new phone when the texts started rolling in, first a couple of flirty messages, then wrong-number calls from someone’s mom.
Turns out, their number used to belong to a high school hockey player who had a reputation as a teenage heartthrob. And instead of updating his digits, he was still handing out his old number to girls at school.
Soon, the inbox was flooded daily with messages from excited teens, some of them way too explicit. And when polite explanations didn’t work, the new number owner decided to turn the tables with a plan so simple it was almost evil.
The Reddit user explained that after getting a new number, messages immediately started pouring in
Phone numbers changing hands has always caused chaos. According to a 2020 Federal Communications Commission report, 35 million recycled numbers are reassigned to new users every year in the U.S. alone. Wrong-number texts aren’t just annoying, they can carry risks, from privacy leaks to unwanted harassment.
In this case, the hockey player’s behavior falls into what social psychologists call impression management. He wanted to maintain control of his dating image, even if it meant lying or misleading others.
Dr. Bella DePaulo, who studies deception, notes that young people often use “white lies” to smooth over relationships, but repeated deception can erode trust and escalate into bigger consequences.
The OP’s decision to flip the script without giving out their own info—was a subtle but effective counter-move. It highlights a principle therapists often emphasize in boundary-setting: you don’t always need confrontation; sometimes a clever redirection is enough to shut the problem down.
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
This user called the move “diabolically simple, simply diabolical”
Another joked that the “real revenge” would’ve been sending out texts ending with “btw, I have herpes.”
Many commenters shared their own wrong-number chaos
It’s a reminder that sometimes, the best way to handle unwanted drama isn’t by fighting it, it’s by leaning into the absurdity and letting people walk straight into the mess they’ve created.
So next time you inherit a new number and get weird messages, would you play it straight and block them or get a little creative like OP?
