Category: Phone Pranks

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Swatting Ringleader Meets His Demise

People do a lot of things with phones. Some are harmless and potentially amusing. Others can get you tossed in the slammer.

Photo by Eric Richardson

Swatting falls into the latter category. It involves providing an emergency service like 911 with a false tip that provokes an armed police raid on the home of an innocent (and likely terrified) person, be it a personal enemy, a celebrity, or just some guy. These hoaxes are a particular menace for the LAPD, since they happen so often to Hollywood stars.

On Tuesday, Jason Allen Neff pled guilty to running a ring of swatters in various locations. Neff, as it happens, has a long and storied career of hacking activities dating back to the ’90s. He awaits sentencing and faces five years in federal prison. The hostage faker seems poised to become a hostage of his own making.

photo: Eric Richardson, Creative Commons

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Toilet Talk In the News

For some mischief-makers of the old school, the internet will never compete with the thrill of a phone prank on a befuddled TV newscaster.

When a Los Angeles water main broke and drenched the UCLA campus, ABC7 News wanted answers. To that end, they fielded a call from one “Louis Slungpue,” who may have traced the flood to either a flushed cherry bomb or “a very large dump.”

Watch the video here:

This would be run-of-the-mill local-news tomfoolery were it not for anchor Ellen Leyva’s insistence on dragging it out, keeping her composure, and not getting it.

The sort of people who still make prank calls often share an affinity for poop.

Tom-Cipriano-200In a related item, the Washington Post has an in-depth interview with Tom Cipriano, a/k/a “Captain Janks,” long-term member of an old phone-pranking pantheon based around alpha shock jock Howard Stern and his “nether regions.” After 10,000+ calls, Cipriano is still at it.

“They don”t just give you the news,” he says, “they give a dramatized presentation of the news. All I”m doing is ruining their sensational moment with my sensational moment.”



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Outrage Grows Over Australian 2DayFM UK Hospital Prank

Pregnant Kate: Radio Station Faces Backlash
Sky News
December 8, 2012

The CEO of the radio station behind the Duchess of Cambridge hoax call says his DJs are “shattered” by the death of a nurse.11:09am UK, Saturday 08 December 2012

Video: Prank Radio Station Faces Backlash

Two DJs are being offered counselling after the nurse duped by their prank call to the Duchess of Cambridge’s hospital died in a suspected suicide.

Nurse Jacintha Saldanha was found dead days after taking the hoax call and putting it through to a nurse on Kate’s ward, who divulged private information about her treatment.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge led tributes to the 46-year-old mother of two, saying they were “deeply saddened” by news of her death.

Flowers have also been left outside the hospital’s nurses’ block, just around the corner from the building where Kate was treated for acute morning sickness.

Major advertisers have dumped 2Day FM and presenters Mel Greig and Michael Christian have been taken off air as the station faces a backlash over the disastrous stunt.
Continue reading “Outrage Grows Over Australian 2DayFM UK Hospital Prank”

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