An unsuspecting taxi company in Spijkenisse was called flat on Tuesday morning with questions about an action by the municipality of Breda. Dozens of lost residents of Breda called for a free voucher for LED lamps, draft strips and radiator foil. “It went on all morning. We knew nothing about it,” says the still surprised deputy director Mark Weinholt of VP Flex transport.
It started as a well-intentioned act. The municipality of Breda gave away 17,500 vouchers from Tuesday morning. With this voucher you can make your house more sustainable for 85 euros. And the motto was: gone is gone. So many people wanted that at the same time that the site couldn’t handle it anymore.
Annoying
The site would have shown an 088 number during the outage, which was accidentally the number of the taxi company. And so many avid discount hunters all ended up at the taxi company. “It was very annoying, especially because we couldn’t explain to callers what was going on,” Weinholt continues. “It also just costs us extra people to solve all of this again.”
The local SP is furious about the state of affairs and has asked the alderman questions. “This company has been inundated with telephone calls. The lines were busy,” says Inge Verdaasdonk. “As a result, people may not have been able to order their shared taxi.” Deputy director Weinholt: “By noon it was solved again. I think the municipality will call us.”
‘Not smooth’
The municipality of Breda acknowledges that the action did not start smoothly and says it regrets this. How the callers got to the taxi company remains a mystery, according to the municipality. The number would not have been on the site Woonwijsbreda.nl. “Woonwijs has confirmed to us that the correct number was placed on the site and indicates that after its removal there is no longer any telephone number.”
The municipality believes that the wrong number was circulating on the internet.