I own a few 867-5309 numbers for different areas. I have them do nothing these days but for a while I let them hit a pbx and we’d get up to 2500 calls a day on each line. Lots of drunk dudes trying to call Jenny.
There's a prank call podcast called The Snow Plow Show, and the guy set up a bot at a phone number that will automatically reply to callers with voice clips from a lady who yelled at him in a prank call one time. So fans of the show will put the number on windshields or craigslist ads so people will call the number and get yelled at, and the calls are all recorded so he can listen back to them later and pull out the better ones.
I think you should utilize a similar technology for your phone numbers.
Hahaha! Never thought I'd see BeverlyBot and Sorry I Dinged Your Car mentioned on HN.
Been listening to RBCP (The guy who does Snow Plow Show and Phone Losers of America) for a long time now. Great to throw on in the background for some laughs at the end of the day while reading.
I once did this by accident when fueling up my car; it just so happened that the gas station's rewards program was linked with the Safeway rewards program, and I happened to be filling up my tank just as the 867-5309 account for my area code hit some critical threshold. Hey presto, 20% off (or something like that; it was a long time ago).
If I was less scrupulous, I can think of a few ways to easily monetize that. The first and simplest is to have a toll line that charges on call and have a recording on the 867-5309 numbers that refers them to call it.
Whether you go the sultry "really meet Jenny" angle or just try to find something that piques the interest of the average drunk male that would call, just to see what they're being referred to, you'd probably get enough takers to turn a tidy profit regardless of how crappy the ultimate toll line was. I doubt it takes all that much to convince callers that are already drunk and trying to do something they think is mildly funny already.
