Internet Culture

Facebook’s ‘lost my phone’ pages are a prankster’s dream come true

Let the text spam begin.

Photo of Miles Klee

Miles Klee

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Constantly losing one’s smartphone seems to be the accepted norm these days, though I really don’t understand how you can misplace an addictive gadget that’s more or less suctioned to your clammy palm. Anyway, the phenomenon results in a whole lot of Facebook pages like the ones pictured here.

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On April Fools’ Day, of course, these absentminded folks are practically begging to be buried under an avalanche of prank calls. OK, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch, but we’re still talking about a ready-made list of potentially gullible people no more than a few keystrokes away. So how should you go about deceiving these forgetful, trusting dupes?

Assuming the victim hasn’t just posted his new phone number—though plenty of them do—we’d recommend joining a group started by one of your friends and passing along a number that’s not yours (preferably an annoying ex’s), then asking them to call you about some “really bad news” that should be discussed offline. If the number is freely available, however, just subscribe it to as many annoying text services as possible. May we suggest messaging them some helpful facts about cats, for starters?

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Remember, though, that whatever you do with strangers’ personal data today, this is only fair game for the next few hours. Once it’s April 2, you’ll just be a common troll again.

Photo by Billy Brown/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

 
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