I'm in a similar situation. I just received a request through Venmo, and I'm considering contacting them to tell the person, wrong account! so that they can do whatever business they're trying to do. If they're above board, they'll want to know, and if they aren't, I'm not out anything. I didn't send funds. I guess I'll try to help this person in the ether. Can't hurt since I'll contact Venmo, not them.

I received the exact same text from Quest last week, twice, citing two different first names and neither was mine. My guess is it's the beginning of some type of scam, so I just deleted both of them and reported as junk.

I hope Jacqueline is aware of her appointment. LOL

It does sound cruel because we all know these mistakes are POSSIBLE but you need to keep you safe first. Anything unsolicited that is not known to you already DELTE and mark as SPAM...it's the Q's job to track the patient down. LET IT GO! Nafarious types are hoping to pull your heart strings.

I had a similar problem during covid when I kept getting vaccine appt confirmations for some guy in Utah. I tried my best to get them to correct their error, but to no avail. I finally had to block their # and hope it worked out for him, but it was a little stressful trying to solve the problem, so I understand.

Lettersat, I’m wondering how a Quest scam would benefit anyone? I absolutely understand any venue that involves money, like Venmo.

eld, are you sure it was somene from Quest you spoke with? As in, did you actually call a local Quest office that you looked up or that you found from a web search you did, as opposed to calling a number the text directed you to? There are all sorts of nefarious people out there who get people to click on links that contain infected scripts and/or provide personal info -- this type of scam comes in all forms. The fact that I received the exact same text seems too coincidental to me.

For anyone who is on Reddit, there is a subreddit called r/Scams that is eye opening. Maybe it has caused me to be more suspicious than I need to be, but I continue to read about new types of scams all the time. Very little surprises me anymore.

Yes, I'm curious how you contacted Quest too. If it was via anything in the text message, it may well be a scam.

And such scams are often ways of phishing identity info, which can be used all sorts of ways to harm people, including extracting money from the unsuspecting.

That's nice of you to help. I had a similar experience maybe 10 years with a woman in Canada (I'm in U.S.) who had a similar email address as mine and she was going through breast cancer treatments, and I was getting her medical-related emails. I notified her provider, but they just kept coming. Once I finally figured out HER email address, I forwarded everything to her and asked her to correct. That all worked out fine until a couple years after that, I started getting her airline and cruise confirmations. (I was so happy this stranger had survived cancer and was well enough to travel!) I just forwarded her the email and let her know it was happening again.

I called the Quest Customer Service number. I've used it before this incident.

Bluebell, totally get what you are saying.

Side story: when we all used landlines, many moons ago, my number was one digit different than that of another resident in my town.

For a short period of time, I got her messages. If they were important, I would call and relay the message. She once did the same for me.

What was weird was that it from different people mixing our numbers up

Another: we got a few messages from a woman named Aunt Betty. She left such sweet messages. No harm, no foul.

At the time I figured she and her relatives would figure it out.

But when she was talking about an medical emergency, we did reverse look up and left her a message that she called the wrong number.

Many years ago, our landline number had apparently belonged to a plumbing company. For severas years, we would get calls for them, even though we couldn't find any hint of their existance. We think a builder put their card in the kitchen cabinet of every house.

People would leave messages, even though our machine said "you've reached [us] , we're not here right now!" Obviously not a business. Sometimes I called them back, so they wouldn't be sitting in a flood, waiting for a return call that wasn't coming.

My goodness, why is this anything more than the email equivalent of someone dialing the wrong number? Do the same - ignore it, move on.

Of course "someone" takes the opposite side from everyone else. If we had said everything was okay, the "let's argue person" would have taken the opposite view. How trite.

i frequently get calls from people who need help paying their utility bills. At first I called them back to let them know they had a wrong number because I worried that they were waiting around for someone to call them when they really needed help. I finally talked to one of the callers to find out where she got my number. I called the organization and it took a while to find the right number, but I did find it. I‘ve saved it in my phone and now I give out the correct number (which is just one digit off mine).

" Of course "someone" takes the opposite side "

That does seem to be your practice with respect to my comments. Why not try to say something worth reading instead?

What Elmer said. Don’t worry about it. Mail comes to my house, wrong numbers either picked up or messages left, not my problem. Any patient expecting to hear about an important appt will follow up if they don’t.

Why not help if you can? What's a one-time effort? I am unlikely to do something on-going, but what if she really needed the appointment, she really didn't get the message, and missed it. I'm willing to make a call, or send an email.

In my neighborhood, people hand deliver misdirected mail. We are but one burg. I assume, if it wasn't one block over or a couple of doors down, we might just return it. As it is, we would rather go visit and say hello. It's not that hard.

The idea was to get shared experiences, which I did, and some thoughtfull conversation.

There is always a difference between the reaction of the women here ( many) which is often different from the ( few) men’sway of thinking.

If my decision was to ignore the text, then there would be nothing to talk about.

For years I got occasional mail for someone with the same house number, two street numbers lower that appeared to be personal not business mail. One item was clearly an annual card from a Grandmothers Club of some kind. I began taking them to her, an entire two blocks out of my way. We became friends, she was older, lovely and fun.

I haven't run into business messages like important appointments left on our phone. I'm sure I would try to have that corrected if at all possible, worrier that I can sometimes be.

We did return home from a weekend out of town once to a meals on wheels delivery to our porch. I could have cried for the person who went without their dinner and of course not knowing how long the food had been there it had to be tossed. I called meals on wheels. May even have raised my voice a little. No one on our block was signed up for meals on wheels and there should have been no deliveries there at all.

Eld - There is zero doubt in my mind that you were trying to do the right thing. But perhaps part of the “thoughtful conversation” could be to point out the possibility that you’re wasting peoples’ time.

In mentioning that you “finally spoke to a Quest rep” does that imply that it took a while to reach a human? If so, why do you think that is? When you did finally reach her, her level of interest should have been an indication of how important she found it. You persisted until it necessitated taking time out of a supervisor’s day. Again you were essentially told to ignore it, but again were seemingly unwilling to drop it.

You said this was an appointment “confirmation”, meaning Jacqueline should already know about it. And maybe also got an email - my notices generally come in duplicate. Was there an option to confirm or cancel? If so, then simply ignoring the text would have done exactly what your phone calls did: let them know that Jacqueline may not have gotten the message.

Perhaps more importantly than any lf that, it’s also a good time to remind everyone that you should NEVER click on links in emails or texts that you aren’t 100% sure are legit and intended for you. Scammers go through great lengths to trick you into doing this. Google phishing if you’re not familiar with the term.

FWIW, our neighborhood has duplicated house numbers on different streets, so there've been lots of mixups over the years. Also, the street we live on has a twin, there's a North & a South with the same name, so that compounds confusion.

Thanks for clarifying about the call you made, eld. I'm glad to know that.

Isn't it funny how one person's attempt to be kind is regarded as being nosy...?

I once got an email from Quest that my results were ready. I had not been to Quest. It was during the height of the pandemic. I went to my portal and saw results of a Covid test. . Again not mine. I contacted Quest telling them the name of the person and the city/state. They were not interested and I had to insist they take the info off of my portal.

Lisa, at least we tried. They are a large corporation and where I am, no competition.

In my opinion, they need to know if there are mistakes or glitches.

i recently had a voice mail left by a financial advisor who was calling a client back. i figured she just misdialed the number so i just ignored it. after thinking about for a minute, i called her at the number she left and explained that she had the wrong number and i was returning her call to let her know. she was very appreciative and apologized all over the place for "bothering" me. i told her it was no bother, i've done it myself and kiddingly told her i've had worse brain farts and we both laughed and talked for 2 or 3 minutes about how getting old is the pits! 😂

Good information here. I haven't read all responses, but I'm appreciative of the help. I haven't had to deal with "any" of this...yet. There's always a first time. Eld...your very generous to try to make THIS right.

" Isn't it funny how one person's attempt to be kind is regarded as being nosy...? "

You clearly don't get it. Reread what I said with an open mind rather than an attitude of wanting to challenge what I said. Or don't, I don't care.

Eld, you have such a good heart. The world needs more like you.