3 Profiteering!
I typed the majority of this up yesterday and then closed the tab by mistake, so it may not be as well crafted as I’d like, but I’ll give it another go:

How I made a Shitload of money off 3:

Like many of you I’m sure, I visit a local car boot every now and then. This one is a fairly big affair, you pay your pound, park up, and wander round. There’s an indoor area which is taken up mostly by market traders, and people actually car-booting go in the field next to these. I’m talking about the market traders though.

I’m not a huge fan of these people anyway; as far as I’m concerned a car boot should be just that, not people out looking for their profit margin. Aside from anything else, they tend to sell utter tat. There are also the wheeler-dealers who are slightly more tolerable, buying and selling second-hand goods, but ultimately they want to make a fat margin on whatever they sell.

It’s one of these dealers that really got on my tits. A father and son team, flogging whatever they could lay their hands on basically. Books, furniture, VHS, bikes, PCs, blah blah. Usual crap. But the son had his own little area, complete with glass cases, dedicated to computer games and consoles, gameboys, anything like that. Most of all though, and the crowning jewel and star feature, were the mobile phones. When I used to go quite a lot, these were the days when the 3310 was still the height of cool, and colour screens were hitting the market. I bought the odd crap phone off him, including my first ever mobile, an Ericsson box, an utter piece of shit. Just new enough to still work. But I’m not ranting about this, because they were running a fairly legit business and I never got actually screwed over by him.

What I objected to was the sudden appearance of a massive RSPB banner above their stalls, proclaiming it ‘not-for-profit’ and that all proceeds went to the RSPB. I knew this was the height of crap – I’d sold stuff a few times myself, and I’d seen them in the local area – this was their living, buying stuff cheap and selling it not quite so cheap, and pocketing the proceeds. It was blatantly obvious, I’m sure not just to me, that the sign was an utter lie. Aside from this, the dealers were a couple of obnoxious bastards.

Anyway, at the time in question 3 was just emerging as a fresh-faced new network, with ‘the future of phones’ – video calling. Now to accommodate video calling you need a fairly high-specced phone, no-one really thinks about it any more, but they had to bring out phones which encorporated 2 cameras, and all the associated gubbins – video streaming, video playback, internet access, blah blah. The result were 3’s first 2 phones, NEC models, see them here:

www.3gnewsroom.com/3g_mobile_phone_review/images/e808.jpg

www.3gnewsroom.com/3g_news/images/NEC_e808y.jpg

Now these are really big buggers, bigger than any modern PDA, but they were absolutely cutting-edge at the time, no-one else had anything like this. Trouble being all people wanted at the time were tiny phones, so it didn’t set 3 off to a good start. Anyway – to buy these phones would generally cost about £400.00. But 3, being the start-up they were, were desperate to just get people on the network, so they would sell you a pay as you talk one for £50! I saw this on the website, considered it to be the bargain of the century, and bought 1 of each. I spent many a couple of happy weeks playing with the new toys, but ultimately I only needed one, and the clamshell was so much prettier, I thought I’d get rid and get a decent price. I half expected to be turned down, told to fuck off, or offered £10. Instead the bastard nearly tore my arm off, haggled with me on the price, touting his RSPB banner, which just put the shits up me. I walked away £150.00 happier – a £50 profit, and a free, ugly-as-fuck phone.

The trouble with these phones though, was that 3 didn’t actually have a ‘PAYG’ option at the time. What they had was a SIM which linked to your debit card – permanently – and whatever calls you made, you paid for. Sounds good, except that these phones couldn’t be used on another network, couldn’t be unlocked, and you couldn’t buy a PAYG SIM for them. Obviously I wasn’t about to sell this to the dodgy cunt with the SIM, so I snapped it the moment I left. And the phone was useless.

The best bit? He had it, pride-of-place, for about 3 months. He eventually got rid to some tool for £100, who happened to go to my school and walked around talking on it as loudly as possible – I took enormous pleasure in explaining why he couldn’t possibly be on a call.

Now this is getting unjustifiably long, but that’s still not the end. I had a technically-minded friend, and between us we figured out a way to take a rip of a Simpsons DVD (I had all the seasons that were out), convert it to Quicktime files, cut them into 4 parts, and transfer them onto the phone so it would play them back. We would watch episodes on the bus on the way to school - the quality was poor but watchable, and we had pre-empted the iPhone by about 8 years! 3 were already running downloadable clips of ‘Naughty Kid’ etc, but nothing more substantial. So we started flogging them on eBay. £6 a season, split the profits each time. We branched out into Futurama and then into films. Sold about 200 discs before I got banned, and decided it was time to throw in the towel as people had started imitating for rather less money. The phone stuck around for another 5 years, and then I sold it for a tenner. Altogether, about the most profitable phones I ever bought, and it allows me to claim that I was the first to think of TV on a phone.
( Rookie You'll have to speak up, I'm wearing a towel, Tue 4 Aug 2009, 12:07, 2 replies)

free phone calls
Back in the mid 90s when mobile calls actually cost a fair amount there was a fairly good scam going on with one2one phones for unlimited free messages. Because all of their tariffs offered free voice mail retrieval, you could dial into other people’s voicemail boxes for free across the network. Simple enough to do, just check your voicemail number on your phone’s settings and give it to your mates. When they called it from their phone it went straight to the record a message bit – free call for them because they were calling a one2one voicemail box and free retrieval for you. For about 2 years, all of my mates who had mobile phones were on the cheapest one2one deal and never paid anything other than the monthly fee as we only ever spoke via voicemails. It was all quite fun until one chap we’d mentioned it to liked the sound of it so popped to the carphone warehouse, bought a one2one mobile and tried to work out his voicemail number. He couldn’t find it in the settings, so called their customer services and asked them how to find it, explaining why he needed it. The bastard got our free call loophole shut down within a week and subsequently regular dead arms from his mates for the next few months.

Not particularly interesting or disastrous actually, but it pissed me off at the time. A few years later though, one2one paid me to accept a new contract as they realised the mistake of unlimited free evening and weekend calls – 200 quid, which was nice.
(Alphabet Soap boshboshboshbosh, Tue 4 Aug 2009, 11:35, Reply)

Spiders and Head Clonking
Now I’m a bit of a liability when it comes to my mobile phone, when it rings I am 9 times out of 10 in a precarious situation, but instead of doing what a normal person would do and just let the bloody thing go to the answering machine, I will instead launch myself across the room like a greased whippet, injure myself on the way, but answer the call – I’m telling you this so you understand how much of a clusmy plonka I am, which will in turn explain how I got in the situation below:

Having recently moved into a new flat in London with my chappy I had taken a few days off work to clean the house and fill every corner with lots of my STUFF. It was around lunchtime and after cleaning the bathroom all morning I was pretty woozy from all the cleaning fumes so I decided to move into the living room and hoover with the windows open so I could breathe. I pushed all the furniture into a corner and started cleaning.

About 5 minutes in my phone rings, I could just about hear it so I turned off the hoover, ran over the cable, slid across the laminate flooring, nearly falling over, and scrambled to pick up the phone to my beloved. Strolling around the room with the phone in one hand and the hoover nozzle in the other nattering away I decided to hook up a jumper off the floor with the nozzle… then it happened. A MASSIVE spider crawled out of the jumper and up the hoover nozzle onto my arm. I screamed and flung the nozzle in the air, as a result of this the jumper fell on my face and the nozzle clonked me in the head. The spider, clearly surprised as much as me, hit the floor and ran towards me. Still holding the phone and still screaming I turned to run from the spider and got tangled up in the cables of the hoover, I hit the ground, but not before smashing my elbow on the coffee table and hitting my head on the floor.

Now while all this was going on my bloke was on the phone assuming I was being murdered so started shouting my name down the phone. I dragged myself up onto the sofa and then had to explain what had just happened… which resulted in a lot of laughing from him and me sobbing about my bruised head and arse!

I never did find that bloody spider either! :(
(Flim-Flam the Magnificent "You is talking loco and I like it!", Tue 4 Aug 2009, 11:08, Reply)

Pioneers don't benefit
Waaaay back in the mists of time - must be '92 or '93 I had just got my first mobile phone. Now this thing was somewhat similar in size to a Chinese Take-away foil tray and pretty much the same shape (better metaphor than a Brick but doesn't hold up on the brevity stakes, but I digress).

I'd had the phone all of a month and the only calls I ever got were fellow lazy bastards hoping for 2nd or 3rd hand photocopies of last week's lecture notes, that they'd missed due to too much time in the bar. Or other students trying to get in to our student society's legendary and upcoming cheese and wine and wine and wine party.

Now being a soap-dodging geek of a student I was in the student Union Bar minding my own business, but secretly willing for a call (at the time I knew of nobody with a mobile, and I'd seen maybe one or two in the Uni so I was feeling pretty smug at having a phone, especially as whenever I was called it was invaribaly to do with 'sorting out some lecture notes' or assorted crap for the Student Society) Just so I could look cool, masterful and maybe even actually impress a girl (times had been barren recently and the freshers' week shenanagins were a long time before).

Well in comes my flatmate Jim, sits at the table and helps himself to one of my gigarettes as the loafing toad was apt to do - I'd let this slide as in later years I was helping myself to his girlfriend so no real problems there.

After maybe 2 or three pints the bar has got substantially busier and I've been eyeing the riot grrls for some time and they've been giggling and looking back -my phone goes off.

Praise the Machine God thinks I. As everyone turns to look at the ponce with the newfangled device. I reach into my pocket pull out the phone and don't even look at the screen before starting the ritual I'd pepared:
"Hey, who could that be", I said in my best faux amused voice.
Whereupon I extended the aerial (yep, had to otherwise a world of static would rush out the speaker and deafen me).
I pressed the magic button and brought the phone up to my ear.
By now everyone is looking at me as clearly I'm the only thing interesting going on (and believe me, I was loving the attention)

so the room attention-grabbing conversation goes like this:
"Hi"
"er Hello"
"Hi who's this?" I said quizzically, not recognising the voice.
"It's Jim's Mum, can I speak to him please?"

crestfallen.
The bastard had given out my number to everyone he knew as he was always in tow and therefore he knew he'd be contactable. git.
(Albert_Memorial, Tue 4 Aug 2009, 11:01, Reply)

Back in the day
I lived with a bunch of guys in Camden. We were uber-geeks, we'd built a set of four desks along one wall of the living room each with its own corresponding LAN gaming station. The little brother of one of my housemates, affectionately known as "Runt", would often hang out or stay over in this room. He was a little bastard, and you never left your computer logged on or your mobile phone lying around if there was the possibility that Runt would be there.

A common trick of his would be to reset the default language, so that Windows was in Swedish and all your phone menus were Portugese, but his piece de restistance was getting hold of my housemate's phone and setting every name in his phone book to "Wanker". For weeks he had no idea who was calling him and spent ages resaving the correct names against their numbers, until he got drunk one night and left his phone in the living room. So Runt, being the cheerful sod he is, did it again.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Tue 4 Aug 2009, 10:35, 2 replies)

The Alan Partridge story earlier reminded me of this...
My mate sent me an amusing ringtone - went something like "*sirens* Could the man with the ten inch penis please come to the bar", and it was VERY loud.
I was with my ex when he sent it, we had a laugh, she suggested I put it as my ringtone - I refused saying it was childish.

Next day I was in the Post Office, patiently queuing when I heard this ringtone. Smirking, I looked around thinking "What twat has THAT as their ringtone?"

And then realised it was coming from my pocket...arse.

Length? certainly not 10"
( snee held his breath since, Tue 4 Aug 2009, 10:20, Reply)

Not exactly a disaster but..
One afternoon at a bar where I work, I was due to get a colossal bollocking for being absoutely shitfaced at work the previous weekend.

Whilst in the meeting, I received one of them 'Vodafone Callback' text message things from when my phone was off the night before (they have a habit of being very late in reminding you that you've missed a call)

This was my message alert: You've Got Mail (The singing bit)

It changed the mood of the meeting almost instantly, making my gaffer see the lighter side of my error, and he let me off with a caution.

Thanks Vodafone, Your completely useless service actually came in useful for once..
(danniekavanagh did nothing constructive on, Tue 4 Aug 2009, 10:13, Reply)

Jay's the name. I'm a reporter. I cover the courts.
Because of 9/11, they restrict cellphones in the court building. Apparently, projectile weapons can be housed in cellphone bodies. Laymen can't bring them inside.

I can. Reporters are privleged. So are attorneys. But those privleges are easily revoked.

I've gotten lucky. Thought mine was off. Someone called. Suspect was on stand, testifying. Judge was hard of hearing. Jury wasn't. Suspect won case, so I wasn't used as a reason for appeal.

Learned to make sure phone was off before stepping into building. Ran late one day. Went into court. Phone goes off. Head of security is in court. I leave immediately.

Security head says I'm lucky it didn't happen in Harper's court. I agree. She is a strict judge, known to confiscate phones. One lawyer excused his ringtone during arguments as indigestion.

Whenever I step into courtrooms, security head motions to my phone, grins. This keeps up for months. Security head, another officer and I attend Harper's court. My phone is off. Security officer forgets to turn down his radio. Goes off during Harper's lecture. Officer steps out. Returns with radio off. Same officer's cellphone immediately goes off. Officer steps out again, gets look from boss on return.

Officer is now asked with me if his phone is off.
(ChiTown Guy Dating when 35+: sane, single, attractive - pick 2, Tue 4 Aug 2009, 2:58, 5 replies)

I'm shit with phones
Really shit
I've had so many die on me through my own stupid use, ie. dropping, drunkenly accidentally ripping apart, getting run over by cars, going through the wash etc.
cost me a bleeding fortune over time
SO
my amazing and infallible plan is to get this

www.sonimxp3.com/
The Jesus phone!
(Freddles, Tue 4 Aug 2009, 2:34, 5 replies)

fuck you roulette
when telling my friends the massive jape of typing fuck you into a message then go through your contacts at random then sending i was horified to sent it to my nan
(PoisonGiger lol an old woman fell down, Tue 4 Aug 2009, 2:14, Reply)

Best ever result from phone roulette
"I'm snorting coke off a strippers thigh, uni's great!" was sent to my mum.

"Male or female?" was the reply.

I love my mum :D

The disaster was when "Fancy a shag" was sent to all my female contacts, including my sister's house phone so it got read out by the machine :(
( weaver., Tue 4 Aug 2009, 0:27, Reply)

Exam Difficulties....
Not me, but a friend of mine from Uni. This happened last year during uni exam season, now the rule at my uni is that mobile phones can be brought into the exam hall, but they have to be turned off and placed under your desk. Now my friend had unfortunately only observed one of these rules (guess which one, given the QOTW theme), needless to say he almost shat himself when his mobile went off during an exam he was in (for those unfamiliar with such rules getting caught doing so can lead to you being booted out of the exam and possibly from your course which means bye-bye degree). So he told me what he did was to fake a massive leg pain, while franticly opening the back cover of his phone and removing the battery from it.

God knows how he succeeded and how he didn't get busted for it, but he did.
(Howling_Mad Gave God the finger on:, Mon 3 Aug 2009, 23:44, Reply)

Nobody's life has been wrecked...
...but this might help one or two people escape from their own mobile disasters.

Orange (UK) have recently been fiddling with some of their out-of-bundle charges for contract customers and, in their defence, pretty much all the changes have been them lowering charges (which in this day and age is something of a miracle).
However, they did raise one charge and that is grounds for most of their contract customers (ie anyone affected by these changes who signed up prior to June of this year) to cancel their existing contract, with no penalty charge, taking both their phone and number with them.

I know this probably sounds like a scam or spam or whatever but I can attest first-hand to it's effectiveness (because like no scams have ever used a line like that(!)) - five months into a 2 year deal and I've managed to escape with a free phone and a free PS3!

Details on how to play the system can be found here, along with a troubleshooting guide telling you how to deal with most of the possible lines Orange will try to feed you to stop you from leaving.
Hopefully one or two of you will find this useful.
(Pope Jamiroquai III, Mon 3 Aug 2009, 23:06, 6 replies)

Scared the crap out of my mate a few years ago
back when AOL were giving out free texts.

I decided to send Kath one, and the silliest thing I could think of to say was 'Put that sausage down, you don't know where it's been!'

It was sent and forgotten about, at least by me.

A long time later, she told me that she'd been walking down the high street eating a sausage bap when her phone had gone off in her pocket.

She stuffed the last bit into her mouth, got the phone out and read 'Put that sausage down, you don't know where it's been!'
She nearly choked on her sausage from shock, and, convinced that I was watching her from a shop window or something, walked up and down for about ten minutes, looking for me.

It shook her up so much that she didn't mention it to anyone for months in case they thought she was mad!
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Mon 3 Aug 2009, 22:37, Reply)

Luckily for me...
The usual drunken text/calling/picture mishaps don't occur for me as when I'm drunk I can't see to use my phone so that solves the problem!
(miss.spanky.pants .. is looking for a handsome prince..., Mon 3 Aug 2009, 21:57, Reply)

.My miussus has just got a new flat
I had just finished helping get the last box of stuff in when her mum presented her with a new phone.

Not a mobile a landline one, seeing as its her first place on her own. So we were all in the living room, myself the better half, her mum and brother. Oh and her (as of that morning) ex-flatmate 'A'.

A got on well with my girlfriend but had been celebrating having the old place to himself. With a 5 hour whiskey binge, and had dropped by to bring round her bike and have some tearful last moments with her x-box.

So being in the same room as her mum and big brother he wasted no time in telling them how he overheard us this morning.

As the rest of the room was sober we quickly changed the topic to the new phone. Doing the usually silly thing of phoning it and asking for the person sitting next to you.

A: ok I got one,
G/f's mum: go on then

A:*Rings*

G/f's big bro: hello XXXX's house

A: TWAT *hangs up*
( willenium Fist bump for verification, Mon 3 Aug 2009, 20:57, Reply)

The one and only time that a mobile phone company were totally, 100% cool and nice
So: it was 2003 and England were in the Rugby World Cup final.

Me and the missus piled down to the Sports Cafe on Broad Street in Brum and watched the match - aided not inconsiderably by copious quantities of our favourite tipples.

The match was a blinder - and then Johnny W slotted that magical drop goal and we won. The place went totally and utterly berserk: we had won - and also stuffed the Aussies!

After about an hour it all calmed down and we found our coats and started to stagger out into the daylight. I felt in my pockets for me mobile and couldn't find it anywhere. A quick scout around the floor revealed it lying in several dozen pieces.

I was genuinely blase about this; we'd just won the world cup for fucks sake - what in the name of Allah's arse gravy did a mobile phone matter next to that?

Anyway - I called Orange on the missus phone and spent about half an hour reliving the highlights of the match with the poor call centre monkey on the other end, who had (surprisingly) been allowed to watch the match.

Then after this slurred merry mayhem I came to the point - "oh yeah - me phone got smashed... - must've fallen out me pocket"

"Really? Can't fuckin' 'ave that when England've just won... - hang on [clickecty clickety] - you'll 'ave a new one in the post in about 2 days!" - and all this with no insurance or anything!

Nice one Orange: the one and only time I have been impressed with a mobile phone company!
(brumguvnor www.twitter.com/brumguvnor, Mon 3 Aug 2009, 20:27, 3 replies)

Like many others I'm not a fan of novelty ringtones.
The only one I ever had on my phone was one that goes.
*loud siren x2* Warning...I'm stood next to a ringtone wanker! *loud siren x2* Warning...I'm stood next to a ringtone wanker!

I rarely used it but I did once at a festival I worked, for shits and giggles, but also because it was the only one loud enough for me to hear.

So imagine my joy the following Monday morning, whilst stood on a primary school stage, micced up, in front of a full primary school assembly. A couple of hundred angelic faces pearing up at me.
All the kids, teaching staff and my boss waiting to see what amazing act of dexterity I'd next do to thrill and amaze, when I feel the rumble in my pocket and the dreaded sound of...
'AROOGAH... AROOGAH... WARNING...I'M STOOD NEXT TO...'
('tin'tintin, Mon 3 Aug 2009, 20:04, 1 reply)

Ring ring
Remember back in the day when mobile phone technology was going through a regressive stage and the proverbial trend was to make them as small as possible? Well sometime around then I had a girlfriend and we ended up fumbling around in the bedroom after a night on the tiles. Being a bit tipsy and feeling rather fruity she grabbed my phone off the bedside table, shoved it up her moist quim (i'm always making women moist I am) and shouted, 'Call me!'.

'Err...with what?' I replied somewhat taken aback. 'Your phone is in the car. Do you want me to get it?'.

'Never fucking mind!'

I could smell her cunt on phone for ages after that. It made phone sex that much more authentic.
(The Archduke of South London I'm in your Girlfriend eating her organs, Mon 3 Aug 2009, 19:49, Reply)

Remember the buzzer noise from the bous board on "Catchphrase"?
Me mate's mobile played it on full volume every time he got a text.

In a busy callcentre where the bosses fire you for using your mobiles in the office, he left his on the desk in front of him.

Oops....I accidentally sent him a text....for the entire office to hear this "Duuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhh!!!" echo around the building. Cue 100+ heads all turning and looking at James, who promptly shit himself scrambling to turn his phone off.

Didn't get fired though...lol
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Mon 3 Aug 2009, 19:11, 2 replies)

Not a disaster so much...
...but he did get quite angry about it.

Only just remembered about this: when my dad first got a mobile, he spent the whole day making unnecessary phone calls and sending pointless texts (sample: 'I'm in Asda with your mum. :-)'. Then all of a sudden, nothing on the evening until I got a call the next morning from the landline.

I mentioned that he'd slowed down on the texts and he admitted that there'd been a bit of a technical hitch.

You see, he realised the phone came with a charger, but being used to only rechargeable toothbrushes (where you stick the toothbrush onto a little nubbin, a bit like a kettle), he'd thought that there was a sort of recepticle bit missing from the charger and had spent the previous evening waving about his out-of-battery phone and getting irate about how the Orange shop had messed him about.

This went on until my mum got fed up of him moaning, picked the phone up to have a look, and promptly plugged the lead from the charger in to the bottom of the phone.

Daft old git.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Mon 3 Aug 2009, 19:02, Reply)

Three guys in telesales with mobile phones, looking for some payback.
A few years back a very large mobile selling callcentre in Swansea declared bankruptcy and dropped a few hundred staff into unemployment without paying them their week's wages. Twas not a good time as there were alot of good people dropped directly into the shit due to the owner doing this.

About 2 years later, no-one had got their money back and the original owner had started a new mobile selling company with a slightly different name. Did pretty much exactly the same thing as before; calling up customers or cold-calling and harassing the public into buying these contract phones.

Three guys who used to work for the original company were re-employed into this newly formed callcentre and started work as normal.

Secretly though, they were still pissed at how their old colleagues and themselves were previously shat upon by this boss, so one of them come up with a plan. One of them had a contact in Scotland somewhere and what would happen is that this contact would ring them up and buy a contract phone on the most expensive bundle. They'd ship it off to him and he wouldn't pay a penny back to the company, who'd cut him off after the first month. The three workers who were selling him these were getting paid £40 commission for each sale, even though the company was not actually getting any money back in return......

I can't remember how long it took for them to declare bankruptcy again but before the owners found out what happened the three workers walked away with between £25-30k in commission each before quitting the failed company.

A bit naughty in retrospect but it kinda stopped the owner from selling phones to innocents for another 2 years so I suppose that's a plus.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Mon 3 Aug 2009, 19:01, 1 reply)

Not to me, but to a friend
She leaves her home one morning with her new mobile in her pocket, leaving her boyfriend back in the house. Unknown to her however is that her bf has just discovered how to record his own voice as her ringtone, which he apparently did while she was having a shower upstairs.

She settles on the bus next to a granny, and starts to daydream (as ya do).

All of a sudden she hears really loud screaming "I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU ALL, YOU FUCKING CUNTS, I HATE YOU ALL, YOU'RE GONNA DIE!!!!!" Everyone including her is looking around the bus, then everyone looks at her. She suddenly realizes that it's coming from her handbag. Opening her bag, she pulls out her glowing new phone and answers "Hello????", which is answered in return by her boyfriend pissing himself down the phone.
"You bastard..." was all she could whisper, completely at a loss for a comeback to this.

After work, she got home and found out how to change the tone herself. She'd since replaced the tone with herself saying "Brrrrrring brrring.........brrrrring brrring....."

Soz for length but my credit balance is running low, please arrange a top-up....
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Mon 3 Aug 2009, 18:37, 1 reply)

Unexpected Partridge
Little Bro's chum comes over for dinner with parents and myself. My initial jitters about having a confirmed speed-freak and coke bandit over for tea subside when he puts on a tidy show of manners and polite conversation. A lovely, pre-dessert silence falls as everyone digests for thirty seconds or so before embarking on further feeding.

It was during this calm, contented silence that chum's phone receives a text, prompting it to exclaim: 'I'M HUNG LIKE A DONKEY!'

In Alan Partridge's voice. At, oh, around 100 decibels.

Parents laughed and pointed. He never lived it down.
(SimianKid internet faffer, Mon 3 Aug 2009, 17:18, 1 reply)

cows
i used to work for a mobile fone company as a customer service advisor..

most days were quite eventful one way or another, with strange people ringing up with their phone queries, a couple as below:

customer: i cant afford my mobile fone
me: would u like me to take a look at your tariff for you?
customer: no its the fone thats expensive!!
me: i dont understand?
Customer: i've had to replace the battery 3 times since i've had it!
me: that doesnt sound good, you've only had it a month, have you been charging it properly?
customer: charging it????
me: yes it came with a battery charger??
customer: oh crap! (hangs up fone!)
** turns out customer had been replacing the battery instead of charging it! - doh!!! **

2nd customer(with very thick northern accent):
customer: I got kicked by a cow
me: excuse me? sorry?
customer: i was kicked by cow, now i need new fone!
me: "laughing"
customer: seriously- i got kicked by cow, fone was in my pocket, fone is broke!

hehe, still laugh at that one!
(piggietress, Mon 3 Aug 2009, 16:55, 13 replies)

Lazy fingers=badness
I have had many house shares in my life, I'm a bit organised and maybe a teeny it controlly so normally I assemble a bunch of chums, we find a house I approve of (i.e. mice, big rooms, grot+mould and period building outside: got to have a classy exterior but at a cheap cheap price...) and then place freeads to fill in the spare rooms.

Now I used to be a bit of a serial snogger on the Camden scene and had all sorts of men's phone numbers- happy memories! So as to not confuse conquests with potential flatmaes I gave the conquests memorable names (Retard Peter, Party Phil, Fat Mark) and the potential housemates I was meeting in a pub that week/month names with HOUSE in them. Mark House (he later became Condom Mark but that's another story...), John House, Stephen House. You get the picture.

I rarely deleted contacts cos I was too busy snogging to find the time. However I decided it was time to clear out some disused numbers and I was merrily hunting through my phone removing prople when I came across Josh Hotse. I was pretty drunk and decided that this was definitely a past pull with a letter missing from his name and therefore he deserved a quick text before I deleted him forever, so I sent the following message:

Hi Josh, I just found your number on my phone and I don't remember you but I input you as Josh Hot Sex so where exactly did we meet?

When I got the instant reply telling me that he had a girlfriend, and he most certainly had not had hot sex with me when he looked round my SPARE ROOM, did I realise that I probably should have pressed the number 8 key one more time when entering his name (pre-predictive texting).
(octopuspie, Mon 3 Aug 2009, 16:54, 2 replies)

Hitler was a cunt
So was Josef Stalin. Caligula was a complete fucking nutter. Idi Amin was a bastard.

But for me the fella who should first in line to be tried and strung up for crimes against humanity is the absolute twunty shit-sucking mong-e-beast who invented the Crazy fucking Frog.

What a monumental, evil, colossal cunt...
( SpankyHanky, Mon 3 Aug 2009, 16:37, 5 replies)

'twas the early days of the mobile bricks....
Way back in the mists of time when mobile phones were on the large size, a screen that could only show a couple of lines of text & numbers, a battery life of a whole 8 hours and when Mercury one2one's (now t-mobile) coverage was the population found living within the M25.... I was able to play an amusing joke on my best mate.

Small party gathered round his house and much drinking and talking going on. My mate is a bit busy doing stuff in the kitchen when I hatch the wonderfully superb idea of using my mobile to call his house phone. Now, I hadn't told my mate about my newly purchase M300 mobile just yet so I knew this little prank would work nicely.

I nonchanlantly make my way to the living room door by the kitchen and dial his number... ring-ring it goes and so he heads down the hall to where the phone is situated by the front door. Just as he goes to pick it up, I cancel the call.

He shrugs his shoulders and heads back into the kitchen at which point I hit redial. Cue him walking back towards the phone and me cancelling the call again. Now he's a tad puzzled and annoyed by this but returns to the kitchen while I'm trying to keep a straight face.

Phone call three and a repeat performance and now he's thinking "What the hell?" as again the phone goes quiet just as he reaches for the reciever. As he has a bit of a short fuse this is starting to vex him and the other people in the house take notice, I sneakily hold up my mobile to show them what is going on, they instantly click to what I'm doing.

Phone call 4 and now my mate is swearing as he makes a dash for the phone. Again it stops and now his anger is starting to show through as he picks up the reciever and shouts hello down it. Slams receiver down and swears as he heads back to kitchen, myself and the rest of the party are trying to hide our laughter.

Phone call 5 and he's about to explode but this time I don't cancel the call.

Mate: HELLO???? (very loudly with anger)

Me: 'ello mate

Mate: Who's this?

Me: 'tis me.

Mate: Who?

Me: Me you fool.

Mate: Who?

Me: Me, look to your left you daft fucker.

The look on his face is priceless and much laughter from everyone else. He's played several pranks on me over the years so it was nice to get one back on him.

{edit}
Ok, its not exactly a disaster but it's the best I have.
(ParaSitius is an Optimistic Pessimist, Mon 3 Aug 2009, 16:03, Reply)

Definitely tenuous but it is phone related...
My mate Tom used to have a really beaten up Nokia 3210, held together with sellotape, cracked screen and generally scuffed up, but it somehow still worked so he saw no reason to get rid of it.

One day some morally questionable youths rode up to him on their bikes, and decided to that he should hand his mobile phone over to them. Quivering, he took out the bashed up phone, handed it over, to which the gang members looked at it, handed it straight back disgusted and rode off telling him he should “Go out and purchase a newer telecommunication device” (actual quote reworded for family viewing). Result!

(Yes I know this technically contains no ‘life wrecking’ and is rather tenuous, but I warned you in the title didn’t I?)
(xerophytic has no idea, Mon 3 Aug 2009, 15:42, Reply)