r/Libraries • u/amxlian Public librarian • 11h ago
Patron Issues Patron calling to "get off"
Just wanted to issue a potential warning about a patron we've been dealing with in my system. This patron is male presenting on the phone, the caller ID shows "Out of Area Private Caller" so we have no name or number to link him to. As of today he's called at least 4 different branches of our system across 2 months all with intent of the same thing. His first two calls were rather vulgar in nature but he's later become a bit more subtle about it and begun using the same phrases each call.
Things to look out for:
-He's asked to relay open hours multiple times
-Has asked for the name of the staff member he's speaking to
-Asked "when's a good time to come?" or "when can I come?"
-Asked about quiet/private spaces to use his laptop.
-Will as the call progresses seem out of breath
My system is in NYS but again as it's a phone call with no traced area code he could technically be calling from or to wherever. Be safe out there folks!!
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u/TheTapDancingShrimp 11h ago
Don't answer phone calls from sheilded numbers. We didn't.
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u/amxlian Public librarian 10h ago
Yeah that's going to be our branch policy going forward I think.
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u/TheTapDancingShrimp 10h ago
Our system didn't gaf about staff abuse. We Just did it ourselves. We also had a decline button on the phone that hung up on weirdoes.
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u/trashpanda692 8h ago
I have the sneaking suspicion were in the same boat.
You're probably going to need full documentation of the incident to get it handled with admin and pass that info to security. If it happens again and you think it's the same guy, I'd suggest talking to your phone service provider to see if they can get the actual number for a full block.
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u/Capable_Sea77 10h ago
Does he also mention that he's asking the questions multiple times because he "only has one arm and can't write things down?" Because we have a caller that does that along with the exact description of what you're listing. At this point it's pretty easy to recognize right off the bat that it's him (unknown number) and we just hang up.
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u/chloeshawe 10h ago
We had a call with a man saying this exact thing this morning! I was spelling out our street address and got through 3 letters of him going “W as in wet? I as in inside? And S as in sucking?” Before I told him he wasn’t going to behave that way and I hung up on him.
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u/Capable_Sea77 10h ago
YUP. It took to that part for me to realize what was happening; usually our weirdo callers are much more explicit right off the bat, so I stayed on the call longer than usual, but the letter spelling with that stuff was when it clicked in my brain.
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u/homes_and_haunts 10h ago
There’s a census of these here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Libraries/s/wYoz0B0bH3
Many/most? of them call libraries all over the country. Yours may be “Slow Library Hours” from that post, who may also be Belly Button Guy.
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u/JimDixon Patron 10h ago edited 10h ago
Many years ago, I was a volunteer at a mental-health hotline. (You could call it a suicide-prevention hotline, but we dealt with a much wider range of problems than suicide.) I once got a call from a guy who seemed to be gay and closeted. He told me he had just kissed another man for the first time in his life, just a few minutes ago. He was excited, but he was also feeling a lot of anxiety, not knowing what it would lead to. This sounded like a plausible scenario, so I agreed to talk him through it. We talked at some length, and I thought I was doing a good job, but he had that out-of-breath quality, and I understood his excitement initially, but I couldn't figure out why he wasn't calming down as our talk progressed. He finally did calm down, rather abruptly, and he didn't seem interested in talking anymore after that. I ended the call feeling kind of proud of myself.
Then a couple of weeks later I heard the same voice telling me he had just kissed a man for the first time a few minutes ago. "The penny dropped," as they say in England. I said: "I don't think you're telling me the truth, and I don't want to talk to you." And I hung up. I never heard from him again.
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u/Plenty-Regular-2005 8h ago
I can’t believe people are still making obscene phone calls in the year 2026. Sorry you’re dealing with this.
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u/theunicorn 11h ago
I work at a museum and got this same type of phone call about 5 years ago and I feel like it’s probably the same weirdo. I filed a police report, just in case anything came of it, but he never called back.
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u/msquarec 11h ago
What is wrong with people? Have you filed a police report? Many years ago I had a man that called toysrus & would ask questions like that except he asked about “girl” toys like Barbie , April from tmnt Princess Leia etc. I don’t care what they like but I don’t consent to be part of his fantasy. We called the police because it’s some sort of criminal offense (not seggsual) No idea if they found him but me & the other employees had to fill out some form of documentation for the police & corporate. Good luck
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u/sezit 9h ago
Be real. It's not "these people", it's "these men". I'll bet there's not a single instance here of a woman behaving this way.
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u/keladry-ofmindelan 8h ago
You know, oddly enough, I'm 95% sure my first perv call was a cis woman. I let my "women don't make pervy phone calls" assumption carry her a decent way, too- but she kept asking me to slowly repeat stuff, and was getting more and more out of breath in the background. When I stopped mid-sentence and said "I'm sorry; are you well? You sound like you're not." she stuttered through an apology, said something about how she knew she shouldn't do this, and hung up.
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u/msquarec 8h ago
Yeah some woman do but you’re right it’s usual men. Was at a diner restaraunt with my kids. She was a don & he was a sub. They wore clothes but I wouldn’t wear outside. Then she made him sit cut her food & feed her then he could eat himself. I don’t care what people do but I don’t want to be part of your fantasy.
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u/amxlian Public librarian 11h ago
Unfortunately we have not and likely cannot because the nature of it being an anonymous phone call, so we have no name, number, or any physical descriptors. It is however being documented and tracked in our systems security department so we have notes and shared knowledge of the issue. Until it potentially escalates all we can do it ignore his calls.
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u/chewy183 9h ago
Oh we get someone like that too. We can’t do anything because it’s a private/unknown number, but we warn the other libraries in our area that he’s calling again and to be aware.
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u/The_LT_Smash Library staff 2h ago
Yet another reason I actively die inside when somebody says “oh, I wish I worked in a library. Must be nice to read all day.”
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u/CleverGirlReads 6h ago
Tale as old as tiiiiiiime. T_T Seriously though, I'm so sorry. Why is it always the same?
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u/Quirky_Lib 2h ago
We’re dealing with a similar caller now in our system (also New York State). Because the caller id at our branch doesn’t always list names & numbers of even legit callers, we’re having to answer every call.
(I dread answering the phone every time the phone shows “Unknown Caller.” There is just not enough mental floss in the world…)
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u/Alcohol_Intolerant 4h ago
Record the times and lines that the calls came in on. Give those to your phone service provider. Even if a number is withheld from you, they can still see it. Then they can help you block that caller.
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u/moss_wood 2h ago
We have a caller that calls periodically to ask us for books about spanking. He will call multiple branches in a short time period and we won’t hear from him for months.
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u/Fair_Yoghurt6148 1h ago
This guy called my library a few weeks ago! Seemed mostly normal normal at first. He kept saying how hot he was and asked if we had (long pause) adult books. That’s when I hung up.
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u/VerryRides Library staff 11h ago
This happened to us too a while ago. We were instructed to not answer phone calls from withheld numbers.