Beijing Man Buys Phone Number For $215,000

from the Jenny's-number-is-867-5309 dept

A while back, a Chinese airline spent about $280,000 for the "lucky" telephone number 8888-8888, and other Chinese numerologists have paid top dollar for dollars with lots of 8's in the serial numbers. Adding to the number craze, another lucky phone number (133-3333-3333) has been bought for about $215,000 in an auction that mostly likely resulted in quite a bit of buyer's remorse. Amusingly, Chinese newspapers didn't identify the buyer, and calls to the number apparently went unanswered. So the buyer has spent quite a bit on a number he can't really use until the novelty wears off -- though he probably also has caller id and wishes there were better call blocking tools. The next step for phone companies, though, might be to offer "number insurance" -- to let people pay a small fee not to be assigned "unlucky" phone numbers, like 444-4444 or 666-6666.

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