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23 Jan 2011 21:14

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Tech: App Store milestone winner thought winning phone call was prank

  • The more I thought about it, the more I realized it was a genuine call. The girls were getting quite tense. They never would have forgiven me. They would have held it against me for all eternity.
  • Gail “Thank you very much; I’m not interested” Davis • Revealing that she initially hung up on Apple as they offered her a $10,000 iTunes gift card for downloading the 100 billionth app from the store. Eventually realizing that she was the winner (her daughter downloaded the app), she frantically called back the help desk, getting an unhelpful person, then later got another phone call from Apple’s VP of iTunes. The lesson of this story: In case you’re ever presented with this situation, don’t do this. Alright, interwebs? source

05 Aug 2009 10:22

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U.S., World: The Smoking Gun lays the smack down on a prank-call network

  • What is Pranknet? The until-now anonymous network, led by Windsor, Ontario resident Tariq Malik, has been a loose collective of shut-ins, some with criminal records, using Skype and chat networks to commit a campaign of terror on chain businesses – largely restaurants and hotels – around the U.S.
  • The crimes In one case, they caused hotel employees to destroy sprinkler systems, causing $50,000 in damages. In another, they convinced a hotel employee to drink a patron’s urine. Most infamously, they convinced KFC employees to go outside, strip naked and urinate on each other.
  • Take cues from TSGThe mainstream media could learn a lot from The Smoking Gun – which is owned by Time Warner, by the way. Here’s an organization that posts funny mugshots, sure, but then posts these killer investigative pieces full of finished homework that lots of people read. Newspapers, take note. source