[Prudence]

My pet peeve of the day:

There is a contractor who, for reasons unknown to me, is giving out my home phone number as his business number. (Well, technically I have two numbers with different rings, and he's giving out the one I don't use, but they both go to the same phone and the same voice mail box.)

I have received calls from Dunn & Bradstreet, the State of Washington Employment Securities division, and more banks than I can count. Just today a message was left from Wells Fargo regarding information needed on their business loan application. Which tells me that yes, they are indeed currently giving out my number, as I doubt Wells Fargo has so much expendable man power that they're calling on abandoned loan applications from 3 years ago.

I have had this phone number since March of 2004. I get TONS of telemarketer spam on that line because it theoretically belongs to a business and is therefore exempt from the do not call list.

So, today I am finally annoyed enough to put the mad librarian skillz into action. The State of WA puts their contractor license stuff online. And wouldn't you know it, there's their entry, complete with *MY* phone number. So I called the contractor licensing people, who were Not Amused and pulled the file for "further investigation." Oh, and delisted my phone number right away. Which won't stop European Installation General Contracting Inc. from giving it out nonetheless, but may perhaps get them into some sort of trouble.

I'd post their address here and invite you to send them obnoxious mailings, but their address is probably someone else's, too.

I can tell you that they won't be getting a loan from Wells Fargo, who isn't amused by applicants who give out false numbers. Something about lacking confidence...