and I don’t even own an xbox 360

This is the tale of how i got annoyed.

My first call came at around 6am on Saturday morning, some guy called me up asking about the Xbox 360 I apparently had for sale in the weekend shopper. Since I don’t even own an xbox 360 I thought it was strange, so telling him he had the wrong number I promptly hung up, rolled over and went back to sleep.

The second call came at around 6:12am on Saturday morning; different person having the same delusion that he saw my phone number in the paper selling an Xbox 360. This unusual process repeated about every 10 mins until 730am when I (very pissed off) finally turned off my phone. Turning it back on at 9am I found I had already 36 missed calls and within 30 seconds of turning on the power button I got another. Not letting it rest as these obviously weren’t all wrong numbers I asked where they had seen my ad and went downstairs to sleuth a newspaper.

So I grabbed my newspaper and opened to the trader section and sure enough there it was. Clear as day. My phone number advertising a ridiculously cheap Xbox 360 deal.

PHOTO OF THE AD

Now since Saturday morning I have gotten well over 200 phone calls from strangers and as we speak (Tuesday night at 630pm) I am still receiving them. I found out who put my name in as a prank and don’t worry I can assure you they will suffer for it.

This is how the prank works

1. Pick your victim

2. Sign up for the trading post website

3. Enter their details selling anything you like

4. Sit back and watch as they receive potentially hundreds of calls annoying them all weekend

Being the cunning sort of lad I am I wasn’t going to let a situation like this get me down so I decided to have a little fun with the people calling me up. In my defence I was kind to the first 100 or so people just telling them it was sold already but for the ones I gave up on; here is a short list of the responses people got when they called me up asking for an Xbox that weekend:

Can’t control the volume of my voice – just yell into the speaker as loud as you can till they hang up.

Grandpa Arthur – answer the phone as Grandpa Arthur excited to be getting a call and just tell them stories about trains.

But I just called you? – when they answer immediately start talking like you had called them.

Example: Them: Ring ring
Me: Hi I just saw your ad in the paper for the xbox
Them: what
Me: yeah is it still for sale?
Them: wait what, I called you… it was your ad in the paper
Me: yeah but I was asking for an xbox do you have one for 300$
Them: no.. what? You wanted to buy an xbox for 300$?
Me: Yeah!
Them: Dude that’s confusing no one is stupid enough to sell an xbox that cheap
They hang up shortly after this (I don’t know what he was thinking, the ad is pretty clear that I was selling one and not wanting to buy one)

Doesn’t speak English – answer the phone with “mushi mushi” and proceed with jibberish constantly getting angrier till they hang up.

Advertised Peturo.com – I did this to a couple people I just told them that more details for the xbox were on peturo.com

Just waste their money – I just answer the phone and place it on the floor till they hang up And finally this one was my favourite:

Hang on I’ve got another call – What you do is talk to the person on the other end telling them yes the item is still for sale and then mid sentence tell them you have another call on the line and say you’ll put them on hold. Next you place the phone next to a speaker and play Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Taxi till they hang up.

Most people hang up right away after getting this treatment which is all well and good because they don’t call you back mission accomplished. However credit must be given to one young lady who and I shit you not sat through FIVE full renditions of this 2 min 7 second song before I felt bad and told her that the person on the other line who i put her on hold for had just bought the xbox. She was pissed to say the least.

So there you have it the story of how a potentially annoying and angering experience was healthily turned into a fun and enjoyable time. And if anyone reading this did call me up that day and got one of these treatments and need someone to take it out on the person who put my number in the paper was James Clarke email me and ill give you his number.