Black Friday store pranks

[kingmob]

Sealing the entrance doors the night before has always yeilded hilarious results; both from the shoppers and employees.

[nomadcowatbk]

Any stories from today?

[rbcp]

I stopped by a couple Wal-Marts today, only to find out that all of the phones on posts have disappeared at both stores.  At the first store, they'd removed the blue tape from the top of all the posts and there were no phone jacks on the posts from where phones used to be.  At that store, the paint department had a Cisco 7960 phone.

At the second store, the blue tape was still on all the posts and there were phone jacks on all of them still.  But there were no phones.  The phones in the paint department and the fabric department were the old style Wal-Mart phones.

So I guess it's a nationwide thing.  The days of answering calls for Wal-Mart customers is finally over.

[Acidpez]

fail

[nomadcowatbk]

This old trick will work at anyplace that has CD players

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/edXyTi8xB1I&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/edXyTi8xB1I&rel=1</a>

[rbcp]

Here's my rough Black Friday plan for this year that I'll probably never follow through on even though it's the best idea ever. 

Step 1: I will call up electronics departments at various Wal-Marts in my area and get them to tell me which brand of cordless phones their employees use in that department. 

Step 2: I will look up the instruction manuals for those cordless phones and see how easy it is to register an extra handset to their base unit.  If seems easy enough, I will buy a handset from eBay.

Step 3: Before Black Friday, I will drive to that Wal-Mart and either reach over the counter to register the handset myself, or I'll call the electronics department from my cell phone and walk the employee through the steps to register it.

Step 4: Answer calls all day on Black Friday, without the hassle of employees busting me nonstop for playing on their store phones.  I'll just look like an ordinary guy, walking around the store and talking on a cordless phone.

Any thoughts?  Have I thought my cunning plan all the way through?  If I get this all working, I can probably rig an earpiece for the phone that will make me look like an ordinary guy using a late-90's-era cell phone earpiece.  I could even wire a digital recorder into it for better recordings.

I've been wanting to do something like this ever since I noticed that all Targets and Wal-Marts use digital cordless phones in their electronics departments.  It seems like if I can get them to register my cordless phone handset, then it will work forever.  I could go in there and answer their phones for YEARS without them figuring it out.  I don't see how it could stop working, aside from them deciding to upgrade their cordless phones.

[MIB]

I think the cordless phone trick is a good idea. Make sure you also get the extension for their PA system. Fred Meyer's all over again.

MIB

[nyphonejacks]

sounds like a pretty great idea to me... especially with the addition of the headset.

only problem i might see is that they may think that you stole the handset from the store unless you somehow bring it to security before going into the store with some lame story like you brought it with you because you need to replace the batteries or something, and want to make sure you get the right ones, or you want to see if they have the same model because one of your handsets is broken...

[rbcp]

only problem i might see is that they may think that you stole the handset from the store unless you somehow bring it to security before going into the store with some lame story like you brought it with you because you need to replace the batteries or something, and want to make sure you get the right ones, or you want to see if they have the same model because one of your handsets is broken...

Oh yeah, good point.  I'll have to carve my name into it with a soldering gun or something.  Maybe fill up the phone book memory with my own numbers, just for extra proof that I'm not a shoplifter.

[nomadcowatbk]

Here's my rough Black Friday plan for this year that I'll probably never follow through on even though it's the best idea ever. 

Step 1: I will call up electronics departments at various Wal-Marts in my area and get them to tell me which brand of cordless phones their employees use in that department. 

Step 2: I will look up the instruction manuals for those cordless phones and see how easy it is to register an extra handset to their base unit.  If seems easy enough, I will buy a handset from eBay.

Step 3: Before Black Friday, I will drive to that Wal-Mart and either reach over the counter to register the handset myself, or I'll call the electronics department from my cell phone and walk the employee through the steps to register it.

Step 4: Answer calls all day on Black Friday, without the hassle of employees busting me nonstop for playing on their store phones.  I'll just look like an ordinary guy, walking around the store and talking on a cordless phone.

Any thoughts?  Have I thought my cunning plan all the way through?  If I get this all working, I can probably rig an earpiece for the phone that will make me look like an ordinary guy using a late-90's-era cell phone earpiece.  I could even wire a digital recorder into it for better recordings.

I've been wanting to do something like this ever since I noticed that all Targets and Wal-Marts use digital cordless phones in their electronics departments.  It seems like if I can get them to register my cordless phone handset, then it will work forever.  I could go in there and answer their phones for YEARS without them figuring it out.  I don't see how it could stop working, aside from them deciding to upgrade their cordless phones.

That might work if they use off the self cordless systems but I wouldn't be surprised if they have custom made systems like hotels custom made TVs with no inputs.

[nomadcowatbk]

May not even have to go inside the store if you can pick up a signal outside

[nomadcowatbk]

Call a few days before Black Friday saying you're from corporate taking an inventory of the store phones. They might be dumb enough to give the model info there.

[nyphonejacks]

May not even have to go inside the store if you can pick up a signal outside

possibly not to use the phone - but it is probably likely that he will have to get to the base to register the handset...

[rbcp]

I hope I'll get some range on the cordless so I don't have to hang out too close to electronics the whole time, but I doubt the phone will reach all the way outside.  That would sure be nice, though, just to sit in my car and take calls.  I have to be inside anyway, though, just to hear the overhead pages to the different departments.

[nyphonejacks]

problem... do you know what kind of phone system that they have and how to pick up parked calls on that system with a POTS phone?