Bizarre! Woman flooded with 4,500 calls for THIS reason - Know here

In a bizarre incident reported from Northern Ireland, a woman was flooded with more than 4,500 calls after her phone number was mistakenly advertised.

Helen McMahon, who has a first aid training camp, was said to have received the barrage of calls after an email was sent out reminding people to spend the rest of their prepaid cards before a deadline. The Spend Local scheme accidentally handed out her business number after the number that was advertised was wrong by a single digit. 

After receiving a barrage of calls, she called one of the numbers back who explained what had happened.

Speaking to BBC's Good Morning Ulster she said: "At the start of the Spend Local scheme I was getting a lot of phone calls because there is one digit difference between my business landline number and theirs."

The initial buzz died down, however, from Thursday onwards, she was again flooded with calls and voicemails.

"I thought all these people were looking for first aid training coming up to Christmas. 

"I was listening to them and one woman, in particular, sounded lovely and I rang her back and explained she had misdialled and she read out the email and forwarded it to me and I realised, oh my goodness and that was the start of it. "

For the initiated, The Spend Local card scheme was designed by the NI Executive to try and stimulate economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic. The Department for the Economy scheme gives each eligible person a Spend Local £100 Prepaid Mastercard to spend in local businesses over a short period of time.

McMahon said that some of the older people she dialled were 'very distressed' and so she 'turned a negative into a positive' by trying to help the callers. 

McMahon soon received an apology after the company realised the blunder.