I have worked for the customer service centers of several major US companies and one thing that used to be a common complaint was people being given the wrong toll-free numbers. When you’re dealing with a sometimes angry caller over the phone or as I worked in one job by chat over the internet, it is easy under the stress of the situation, to inverse a few digits or to remember the wrong department’s number.

Under real-time pressure, you sometimes convey the wrong information unintentionally. Eventually, you figure out that even if you can memorize it easily, it is better to actually look it up and read it as you go. However, wouldn’t you think that when you’re sending out information by mail that you would be doubly sure to double-check that you’ve included the correct telephone number?

Apparently, according to the AP (04/14/06), not if you work for the Arkansas Teacher Retirement System since someone somewhere didn’t bother to proofread a letter sent out explaining how to name beneficiaries in the event of death to its retiree and active teacher members.

It’s not the first time I’ve heard of an insurance plan giving the wrong contact number and it ending up being to a phone sex line. Nevertheless, they added some extra kink since they’re misprint happened to be to a fetish sex number.

“Hi, baby! Do you want to massage my feet or suck my toes?” a seductive female voice inquires. She continues by explaining, “Foot fetish fun is only 69 cents per minute” and then gives another number to dial “for all the hot, one-on-one triple-X toe talk you can handle.”

The ATRS had already sent 50 000 copies of the mistyped letter out to members. Another batch to go out to 50 000 other members has had the typo corrected.

That’s too bad since wouldn’t you rather talk to hot girls about their tantalizing tootsies than find out how you’re loved ones can benefit from your death? I guess some insist on picking the morbid over the torrid.