Thursday, July 16, 2009

DON'T FALL FOR IT!!!

Occasionally, something happens in the real world that I know wouldn’t be credible in fiction. Watching the news this morning, I came across another one of those situations. Apparently, someone has been calling hotel guest while they slept. Barely awake when they answer the call, the guest is shocked to hear there’s a major gas leak in the building. They are then instructed to do crazy things like “take the iron and smash the window”. Did any of the guests obey the caller’s demands? You bet. Between being half asleep and not questioning whether the person on the other end of the phone was really the manager, they got suckered in. The guests followed the prankster’s commands, costing hotels beaucoup bucks. Even a sheriff’s deputy fell for this ruse. Not only did he toss the mattresses out the two storey window, he considered doing the same with his children. Poor guy. He must’ve been embarrassed once he realized what had happened.

This post is for any of you travelers out there. Be aware of this prank and don’t fall for it.

Do you have any unbelievable stories to share?

13 comments:

  1. Good to know! We'll be traveling soon and staying in a motel! I'll make sure I let you know if we get any prank calls like that!

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  2. I saw that story! People never cease to amaze me (talking about the pranksters).

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  3. When I was in the Army, I was an MP. We got midnight bomb threats for weeks on end, and every time (even if it were the third time that night) we had to get up and clear the building while they checked.

    A true story that's not a prank is how scammers call oldsters and say they need their Medicare # for some bogus reason. The people gladly shell out their Medicare # and don't realize that, although they don't get billed, the medicare system does--to the tune of several billion dollars in fraud a year. All because people share that identification number. No one seems to know that this is a bad thing because the old people aren't the ones who pay the tab.

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  4. I read about that too and thought why would the person fall for it? Hmm.

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  5. I tend to be a bit gullable, but I sure hope I would not be THAT stupid! Oh my goodness! My life is fairly mundane and I can't think of anything spectacularly funny like that to share!

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  6. Good grief. It IS kinda funny in a sick sort of way. Maybe if it was part of a tv show?

    I've got nothing in this league! Just regular eceryday silliness :)

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  7. That's sad that people have so little respect for others and property. don't they have better things to do with their time?

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  8. That is crazy. I can only imagine what awful thing will happen because of something like this.

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  9. Is there no end to the inventiveness of criminal sick minds? Thanks for the PSA.

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  10. I am just the kind of person to fall for something like that. There is something that kicks in when you got your kids with you that makes you think throwing a chair through a window isn't a bad idea.

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  11. The sad thing is that some of these pranksters have recorded the conversations and posted them online. These are not teens, folks. They are definitely adults. Very sad, disturbed adults.

    Lynnette Labelle

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