My toll free telephone number is 1-800-587-7022. Dial that and you will get to Print Tec world headquarters in Duxbury, Massachusetts. At one point in the company's 13 year history, I would occasionally get phone calls from realtors that wanted to know what my rates are. I would kindly explain that they had the wrong number and hang up. A few weeks would go by and suddenly the calls would begin again. It was really weird and very annoying. Finally, I decided to take action.

The next time someone called looking for my mortgage rates, I asked what number they were calling and whom they thought they were getting. It turns out that they were responding to a fax advertisement from a California mortgage company whose telephone number was one off from mine (800-567-7022). It seems that when the company sent the fax, they printed their number so small on the fax it made the "6" look like an "8." Thus, the problem.

Since I was in printing and had a solution to the problem, I decided to take action. Calling their number, I spoke with someone and explained the problem. She couldn't help (natch) and gave me the name of a manager. She couldn't help (also natch) but gave me the name of her boss and on and on it went until I hit the VP level, a woman by the name of Vicky.

Now, Ms. Vicky was not at all sympathetic to my problem. In fact, she couldn't have cared less. I was calmly explaining the situation and she kept telling me there was nothing she could do. I offered up a solutionóenlarge the font size of the numberóbut again, not her problem. She told me "Let me understand this: you want me to reprint my fax sheets so that you don't get any more wrong numbers??? I'm sorry, but I am not willing to do that." I began to argue and then suddenly, mid sentence, I had an idea. I told Ms. Vicky I wanted to her to write down my name and number. She asked why and I predicted that she would be calling me as soon as I fixed the problem. She argued, but complied.

The first opportunity to fix the problem came quickly. In about an hour, the phone rang. It was, you guessed it, someone who wanted to check my rates. Instead of telling the caller she had a wrong number, I replied, "2.79 person, no points, no closing. This offer is good this week only and if you have any problems, call Ms. Vicky at this number and tell her Bill gave you the quote."

This continued for the next three calls I received that day. Shortly after, I got a call from Ms. Vicky, an apology from Ms. Vicky, and a promise to take care of the problem immediately. It seems I had started a rush on the bank looking for that guaranteed rate and Ms. Vicky soon found out that having to explain the situation was becoming more on an issue than correcting a fax sheet.

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