0800
Back when I was 13/14, my cousins, close friends and I used to have the amazing ability to memorize 0800 numbers from practically any source. Be it tv ad, radio or newspaper; we'd remember it and discuss it amongst our group on the way to the park to play footy.

Now, this sounds a lot like prank calling, but more often than not, we'd ring company X from the phonebox and find something to complain about. Usually netting us some freebies.

I was usually very bad at the actual calls and struggle not to laugh, but I was decent at coming up with ideas for content.

Calls that I can remember:
Ringing Whiskas Cat Food and telling them their product had made our emu sick. (They sent us some of those cat-food pouches and loads of vouchers. Kinda missing the point of the call.)

Ringing some insurance company (whose number sounded like an owl, 282820 or something) and telling them their ad was scaring our "mentally challenged" younger brother. (Whilst in the background my cousin would scream his fear of said owl whilst repeating the phone number very loudly in his best crazy-voice.) They sent us a letter of apology.

Ringing BT from a phonebox that had it's door missing and saying things like "For shame BT! We expect this kind of behaviour from other companies but not BRITISH Telecom! Lordy-lord!". We insisted that the lack of door was confusing the locals.
Us: "Yeah it looks like the door was smashed off by a... "
One of us pretending to be a very-loud passer-by who had now joined us in the phonebox: "Oh hey man, are you using this? How long will you be? Didn't this thing used to have a door? Have you got change of a £1?" etc etc.
BT promptly fixed the door and sent my mate a thank you letter for reporting the door problem. He rung them back to report a typo in the letter.

But the call that eventually stopped us (we also grew-up and matured... mostly) was when we rung Coca Cola and INSISTED that the Diet Coke bottle we'd purchased, tasted exactly like (dum dum dum!) regular Coke!
The woman on the other end believed us instantly and identified that the mix-up "could be a danger to diabetics everywhere!" We hadn't thought of that, we just wanted a free coke or two! So they took the details of the caller and sent him various boxes. In these boxes were detailed instructions regarding returning the rogue Diet Coke bottle "so tests and inspections could be carried out" and all sorts of safety leaflets. We panicked, thinking someone would be running checks and we could potentially cost someone their job, binned everything and hoped the problem would go away. Luckily it did.

Long-story-short; we were easily amused idiots.... but even to this day, whenever I see a "Not Satisfied? Call Us On 0800 etc etc" I grin and let my immaturity ponder what I'd say if I was 13 again and wanted a free Kitkat.
(tylrdiablos, Wed 8 Sep 2010, 22:25, 2 replies)

I like it
Childhood is great. Thanks for a great story.
( The_Commander_of_Skips wears his sunglasses at night, Wed 8 Sep 2010, 23:03, closed)

Random Dialling
Used to do this when a lot younger and a lot more immature.

Would dial a random number and just chat to person on other end (luckily didn't get any important services eg childline).

Once got a hotel in the US, after much piss take on our part they hung up. Called back to try again to be told, 'you've been reported, I know you are in the UK and someone will be there soon.' To our child minds we were rumbled and never did it again.

I realised later that no hotel is that good at tracing a call. Lying sod, but fair play to him for getting rid of us.
(langers, Thu 9 Sep 2010, 11:43, closed)