Thomas Powell already was a little irritated when he called the Carl's Jr. customer service hot line Saturday. He talked to a manager about a complaint he'd had, who suggested he call the corporate number and pointed him to a sign by the soda machines.

So Powell did. While still in the store, he dialed the number, then listened to the recording in shock. It wasn't a friendly greeting asking him to hold for the next available operator, it was a voice telling him to call a different number to get "the best live talk."

"We were just shocked," he said.

At the second number, there's a recording offering callers the chance to talk live with "hot, horny girls."

Powell alerted the manager about the mistake; he later discovered the posted phone number was two digits off from the actual guest response number when he looked up the company's Web site. The manager, Powell said, told him there wasn't anything he could do, so Powell ran out to his car, grabbed his digital camera and took a picture.

"It just seemed to me like they weren't willing to resolve that," he said.

Not true, said a store manager; on Wednesday, the number had been covered in white paper and an on-site manager said it was taken care of immediately after they were notified Saturday. Owner Aaron Sandvik said the sign was correct years ago when he and his management team decided to make larger posters in place of the small, company-issued signs to encourage people to call the hot line. The number has since been changed, he said, and another company has picked up the old number.

"This is just being brought to our attention," he said. "I guess it goes to show how often people really see it."

Anne Hallock, the public relations manager for Carl's Jr., said she hasn't heard of any other franchises experiencing the miscommunication.

"It's an unfortunate coincidence, the difference in numbers and the difference in subject as well," she said.

Sandvik said he has ordered a sticker with the correct number and the old number will be permanently covered.

"Certainly we're all over that, as you can imagine," he said. "As soon as it was brought to our attention, we took care of that."

Heidi Toth can be reached at 344-2543 or htoth@heraldextra.com.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.