We've all been there.
The phone keeps ringing...and ringing...and ringing as telemarketers berate us with great deals on time-shares, trips and a host of other things we don't want or need.
Well if you ever thought it would be fun to turn the tables, you might think again...as that action ended up landing one Georgia man in jail.
Kenneth Lodge, of Rockdale County, Georgia, got a new phone back in February. Within a day or two the phone started ringing with calls from a local furniture rental store looking for someone that wasn't Kenneth Lodge. At first they said it was a mistake and that they would stop calling the number. The phone started ringing again the next day.
“It’s like you laying your bed and somebody coming up saying, 'Wake up, wake up.' That’s how annoying it is,” Lodge told Atlanta TV station WAGA.
Lodge offered to get a certified copy of his phone bill to the store so that they would know, with certainty, that the number now belonged to him and not to the man they were looking for. But the phone kept ringing, every day, for months.
Finally...Lodge had enough and decided to turn the tables.
“A bully will push you around and push you around until one day you beat his butt. Well, that day I was the bully, and I got tired, but I got arrested,” he said.
“I started calling them, and I called them and called them and called them until they started saying, 'Will you please stop calling here.'”
Lodge said he picked up multiple phones and started calling repeatedly. He kept at it for an entire day.
Fox News Channel interviewed Lodge about the incident on Friday.
“At one time I had three phones to my ear asking for James Crouch. I want to speak to James Crouch and they asked me if I was crazy. I said, 'No, I'm just tired, tired of you calling."
According to a Rockdale Sheriff’s department’s incident report, Southern Home Rental called 911 about the phone calls and told police Lodge threatened to blow up the building.
“Never threatened anybody. I promised them I would call them all day and I did,” he said. “I introduced myself to them every time I called. I said, ‘I am Kenneth Lodge and I want to speak with James Crouch.’ They said, ‘James Crouch don't work here.’ I said, ‘I don't believe it, cause you didn't believe it when you kept calling my house.'"
For his part, Kenneth Lodge told WAGA he doesn’t regret what he did and he's ready to fight in court. But he says there's still one big problem – he’s still getting calls.
“What I suspect now is they figure they'll aggravate me because I’m a criminal now,” he said.
Lodge said the whole thing could cost him up to $6,000 in legal fees, but he said it will be the best money he's ever spent.
Have you ever wanted to turn the tables on telemarketers and collection agencies? Would you be willing to go to jail over it? Do you think Lodge went overboard...or were his actions justified given the volume of calls?
TV Station Profiles & Public Inspection Files forWNWO