Portable Phone Numbers = Market for Cool Numbers

goombah99 writes "The New phone number rules that allow you to keep your phone number when you switch carriers has given rise to phone nascent number property rights. On E-bay you can bid on 867-5309 (made famous by Tommy Tutone's Jenny I got your number). As I write this the bid is over $8000 dollars with seven days to go. What other numbers are famous or valuable? Will we see a land rush like the internet names?"

Comments

Prank Calls

[electrichamster]

Great, now I can prank call the winnning bidder...

Re:Prank Calls

[Jerph]

666 is a prefix in Little Rock, Arkansas (USA). Everyone mentions it when they first find out, yes, but even here in the Bible Belt people eventually ignore it.

Re:Prank Calls

[rs25com]

I used to work for Cellular One in San Francisco, and we had the 867 prefix. Of course, one of my friends owned a small record company, so he snagged 867-5309.

Worst mistake of his life. Because it was a business, he had to answer all the calls.

And yes, EVERYONE prank calls that number ALL the time. He dropped it after 60 days. Whoever the guy was who called (supposedly) the number at 3am is exactly the type of moron the winner bidder will get to deal with until they, too, drop the number!

and now I've got the song stuck in my head...

[sweeney37]

I think the general "gee-whiz" factor of owning 867-5309 would wear off really quickly. I know I called this number in the past, how many other people did too? I think the guy that is selling this is making a nice penny on his past headaches.

Mike

What other numbers are famous or valuable?

[zegebbers]

Who wants to buy 3-14-159-265?

Re:What other numbers are famous or valuable?

[twoslice]

Who wants to buy 3-14-159-265?

Shut your Pi hole!

Nerdy?

[isNaN]

You'll have to be a *real* nerd to actually buy a "famous" phone number!

ohh... wait... forgot I was on /. there for a while ;)

Old stuff (and higher prices) in China

[1u3hr]

In China this has been around for years. Chinese numerology gives great value to number 8. See for instance "A special phone number, 88888888, was auctioned Monday in this capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, for 2.33 million yuan (about 280,723 US dollars)." In Hong Kong there's a premium on lucky phone numbers and you can buy and sell them, the mobile phone companies usually have a board outside with lists of auspicious numbers available.

"Ownership" of the phone number

[dada21]

It is odd how people have become acclimated to the belief that they own their phone number. Back in the day (in the 80s) I had lost a phone number when a local business wanted it. The phone company explained clearly in their legal text (which was in the phone book) that you don't own the number, and can lose it at any time.

Do phone numbers really matter all that much? I used to know all my friends' phone numbers by memory. Now, speed dial makes it worthless.

If someone changes their number, they e-mail me, I save it to my contacts list, and when I sync my phone the new phone number is there. I don't think I call more than 1 person a day from my phone without using the contact list. I use over 3000 minutes a month from my cell phone, so that's around 9-10 people a day I call without knowing their number.

For a business, having a cool number that spells something or references the business in a memorable way makes sense only when you need to get people to call you after seeing an advertisement. Once you regularly call someone, you probably won't recall that number, even if its something great like 4-DADA-21.

I know I don't own my phone number. I also know I'll be paying more on my cell phone bill so that others can keep their numbers. I've switched cell phone numbers probably 4 times in 8 years, and never really lost contact with anyone.

If people matter to me, they know more than my phone number. They have my e-mail address, they have my home address, they can contact me through other friends. If I lost my number today, I'd be hampered for maybe 2 days and then it would be business as usual.

I'd rather not pay for this feature so others can "protect their private property."

Re:Making words out of numbers.

[cjellibebi]

There is a web-tool for finding out what words you can make with a phone-number using the letters that appear next to each number - http://mmm.mbhs.edu/~bconnell/phoneagrams.html

eBay

[ThomK]

Why use eBay? Just call the guy.

The same thing happened here

[ArcticPuppy]

Here in Norway we got number portability a couple of years back. For a couple of weeks the newspapers were filled with stories of numbers going for outragous prizes. There were even specialized web sites where one could auction cell phone numbers. A couple of months later, everyone sobered and the market dried up. The whole thing was even sillier than the domain name market in the dot com era.

It is a fake!

[twoslice]

On E-bay you can bid on 867-5309 (made famous by Tommy Tutone's Jenny I got your number).

I called the number and there was no Jenny there. - Just some guy calling me an asshole for calling him at 3am...

You can't beat Creative Printing

[Anonymous Coward]

515-382-5968.

For those too lazy to find a phoneagram script, their number equates to 515-FUC-KYOU.

I searched Google but couldn't come up with any other real examples of 382-5968. I would imagine most telcos know about it and don't assign the number, I'm surprised someone managed to actually get it in Iowa.

Can you slashdot a phone number?

[ggvaidya]

867-5309, eh?

Can a phone number be slashdotted? :) I think we're about to find out!

Re:That's 362-4360

[Motherfucking Shit]

OK, after seeing the replies, I did some lyric digging. First off, AC/DC is an Australian band, not a British one, but the posters who intimated that telephone numbers in AC/DC's part of the world are six digits were correct. According to AC/DC's own lyrics page, the actual verse is:

Pick up the phone, I'm always home
Call me any time
Just ring 36 24 36 hey
I lead a life of crime

In the recording, the "hey" is pronounced as more of a "ho" - I just listened. So, I stand corrected. It's not 362-4360, though at least I was right that it isn't 362-4368, either. As could be expected from AC-DC, it's 36-24-36.

RIP Bon Scott. Ride on, ride on...

ironic number

[JustKidding]

Here in the Netherlands, you can always call the local police station by dailing 0900-8844, which spells 0900-TUIG.
Tuig means scum in dutch.

Wozniak's famous number...

[tinrobot]

I remember reading in Wired that Steve Wozniak got the number 888-888-8888 when the 800 numbers switched over to 888.

He found the number unusable because he got tons of wrong numbers from small children -- who seemed to have a habit of pressing the 8 key repeatedly...

didyaknow that 8675309 is prime?

[pedro]

Gawd, I'm such a geek :)

Re:That's 362-4360

[Prior Restraint]

36-24-36? Only if she's 5'3".