Calls to customers

[rbcp]

Last year we started calling up Walgreen's customers, telling them that their photos were ready with hilarious results.  Then Walmart photo customers.  Now we're going nuts on Domino's Pizza customers.  It's incredibly easy to call up a business and talk them out of customer phone numbers.

So I'm wondering, anyone have any ideas on other businesses that we could call and trick out of customer's phone numbers?  Maybe a technical support number?  A chinese restaurant?  Pocket mops?  We're limited to places that would have a corporate office or a technical support line calling them to get information like this unless we can think of a different ruse.  Oh, maybe Applebees!  They have parking spaces just for phone-in orders, so they must get orders.

Getting customer phone numbers for pharmacy customers would be great fun, but Mr. Spessa assures me that this would be some crazy felony under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996.  Dammit.

Anyone have any amazing ideas?

[markov]

I'm not sure what you'd tell them but you could call a store that has a pet hotel for people to leave their pets when they go out of town, and get the info of those customers. Then you could call the customers and tell them their pets are crazy and have to be kicked out, or whatever.. PetSmart offers this service and they are a corporate chain

[markov]

This idea may be too much work for what it is, but its an idea so I figured I'd put it out also..

You could call hotels and say you're from the central reservations office and you're not sure if the last reservations came through ok or not and you need to check them.. Not all hotels have central reservations but a lot do...

You could try the same type of thing with internet reservation companies like travelocity or hotels.com- call them and say you're from the hotel and you need to contact a guest to verify some information regarding their stay... chances are the person on the phone doesn't want to call the customer themselves so they will just give you the phone number. The only thing is you'd have to call the hotel first to get the guest name before you call (you could call the hotel and say you're from the internet company, and you need to verify if they received your last booking or not). If you picked a larger chain hotel in any bigger city, chances are they have received a booking from an internet company recently.

[markov]

If I remember right, you guys already did something like this once, but there's always the automotive departments at walmart, sams, etc.

You could call people about their cars. Lots of times people are shopping in the store while they wait since it takes several hours, so you could call them while they are at the store even.

Again, I'm not sure what you would say to get the customer info.. Speaking of Sam's, maybe you could get the info for customers of members only stores like that. Say something like you're calling from corporate to verify some new member info or something

There are several stores around here like Lowes that ask for your phone number during check out. They say its just to keep a log of where their customer base is, but any time you're at a store like this you can eavesdrop and note the person's phone number. Then you can call them up and say you're from the store they gave it to

[Q_]

I know Sam's has computers on display, maybe we could get the passwords for them...

[UKTed]

You could call hotels and say you're from the central reservations office and you're not sure if the last reservations came through ok or not and you need to check them.. Not all hotels have central reservations but a lot do...

Hotels are always good fun, however in order to get the guests number, you would have to have their name or some other information about them. Its unlikely that you would be able to just ask for "the most recent booking". Unless you call in the middle of the night. Hotel night managers are retards.

[Cyclopath]

Schools could be interesting; you could say you're from the school district and trick them into giving you the parent's numbers. Then you could call the parents at work and say their kid is very sick and they need to come and get him/her, or you could say that their kid is going crazy breaking things and they need to come and get him/her or the resource officer will have to taze him/her. You can get kids' names off of Facebook. I recommend the one's that look really popular, since they're likely the most spoiled.

Am I an asshole or what?

[Cyclopath]

Prisons could be interesting too; you could get the prisoners' information by saying your with the Department of Corrections, and then you could tell their family members that the person has died and they need to get the body or something. Could mean a wasted trip for somebody.

You could always call up the welfare office and get information on people on food stamps, and tell them that their benefits have been revoked because they need to "get a job." Not everybody on SNAP are like this, but career welfare bums cringe over those three words.

[PHISH-PHREAK]

For most shitty motels you can usually just type in an extension to reach rooms. Like the jackass who made the people smash windows for ventilation.

[markov]

I was thinking more about calling people before or after their stay

I used to work for a large internet travel company and hotels regularly called for the guest's phone number because it isn't given to the hotel. The company gives them the company phone number and address instead of the guest info.. That's why I was saying you could call the hotel and say you're from whatever booking company and ask for the names of the last reservations they received, and then you could call the booking company with the guest name to get the phone number

[markov]

My whole hotel idea above just seems like more hassle than its worth though.. especially since it depends on getting a lazy/stupid employee on the phone.

What if we looked for people posting that they just checked into a hotel on facebook or foursquare? Then when calling the hotel you could ask for a specific name instead of just a random room extension

[Cyclopath]

Call up a mental hospital, that could be interesting.

[markov]

What about ebay sellers?

You could watch buy it now auctions from sellers that list their phone number. Then when someone buys it, you could call the seller and give them the item number, saying you aren't sure if you sent the correct address and get them to read you back the shipping address. Getting the phone number may be stretching it, so then you could do a reverse address search to find a phone number to call the buyer

It would also be pretty funny if there was a way to get customer phone numbers from UPS, and then you could call customers acting like the delivery driver for UPS or from the warehouse