That sounds like it might have been a bit more than a prank, no?
Restaurants and taxi companies being the most common exceptions for obvious reasons.
In the early eighties, I had access to a phone that could do a conference call.
My favorite past time was to call someone I knew and while the phone was ringing put them on hold, and call someone else I knew, who also knew the first person. When the phone started ringing for the second person, I’d press the conference button and stay silent.
The end result (if it worked well) was that each person thought the other person had initiated the call. So you’d get conversations like:
Hello?
Mike?
Yeah. Keith?
Yeah, What’s up?
Not much. What’s going on?
Sometimes they’d just start talking, and not realize I initiated the call, and sometimes they’d start arguing about who called who.
I also did it where I’d call two of the same chain of stores or gas stations (e.g. two nearby Hallmark stores) figuring the owners knew each other.
It always made for good entertainment and I never had to say a word.
Ahhh, good times!
Stern does a good one where he calls a Chinese take out and gives them a long order, then he conferences in another Chinese take out and has the first one read it back to the second one. Total confusion.
Pretty funny stuff.
Please ignore.
I remember when caller ID was brand new and not very well known, I think it was Saturday Night Live that had a skit with I think it was Dave Madden playing not a prank caller, but a scammer calling a housewife, trying to get her to buy or invest in something shady. She said not to bother her again and her new caller ID showed his number as such-and-such, then hung up. Then it showed him looking worried and muttering darkly: “She knows my number. Now I have to go and kill her.”
I did that, too, going into the back door on holidays when no one was there.
Back when pay phones still functioned, we used to call one in front of a distant 7-11 that I could see through a telescope. Waiting for people to pass on their way into the store, we called until a person would answer. (It happens more often than you’d expect.) When they answered, we asked them a favor: “Could you to go into the store for me and find out how much a bag of Cheetos costs?” Surprisingly, some people would actually do it, but once in a while someone would wait a minute, just make up a price, and say that. “Are you sure? That doesn’t sound right. Did you really go into the store? You’re not lying to me now, are you? Why would you lie to me? You don’t even know me!”
The reason why they’re asking for your number likely isn’t just to match it up with their caller ID. They likely looked up the number to see if you’re in their database. I know I’d be curious if a strange phone number gave me a different phone number.
HA HAH HAHAHAHAHAHAH rolls over and over, dying of laughter Yeah, good luck with THAT.
I remember once calling a sporting goods store and asking about their balls. If they had any blue balls? No. if they were squishy or firm? Depends on the ball type. Did they play with their balls? Yes Did they keep them clean? You betcha. Let customers kick their balls? They hung up.
Ah, the memories!
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Back in the early 90s at my job, we were supposed to use the phone message slips when a person was on the phone and they received a call. We would wait for someone to be on the phone and then fill out the slip, marking the “Please Call” box. We would put the person’s name as “L. E. Fontt” and give the number for the local zoo.
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Someone pranked me good when I was working for a government contractor as a programmer. They would call the local theater and get the movie time recordings, transfer the call to me, and then hang up. The result was that I thought I was getting phone calls from the outside which were bypassing the switchboard. This happened several times a day and eventually, my boss told me to report it to security. When my friends told me what they had done, we were afraid to tell security that it was a prank. They never got caught.
If you think girls don’t do prank phone calls, you are very, very wrong.
You forget, we are devious creatures and can plot well. One prank phone call of mine involved forethought, several calls and ended up on the local news. Thankfully, I left town that day and heard about the news clip from my mother describing it to me and 'what horrible person would do such a thing." Well, it was me.
Oh, you cannot leave us hanging like that!!! Spill!!!
When I was in high school, it was a tradition in my school to do a prank during your senior year. My senior prank was to somehow sneak into the admin offices early one morning and to unscrew the mouthpiece of every telephone handset I could find, pop out the diaphragm, and put all of the diaphragms into a bag hidden in the bottom drawer of a file cabinet.
When the office staff arrived and phones started ringing (for excused absences, etc.), the calls went like this:
Phone rings…
School Admin Assistant: "Hello, this [Blank] High School, how can I help you?
Caller (hearing a click but no answer): “Hello? Is anyone there?”
School AA (more emphatically): This is [Blank] High School, how can I help you?
Caller: “Hello? Hello?”
[click]
Rinse and repeat. 
After a few minutes of this, a friend and I started using the pay phones to call the school office. When they picked up, we pretended to be holding the mouthpieces hostage. We had demands and everything. Then we finally told them the mouthpieces were hidden somewhere in the office. Then we started giving them clues. Eventually they found them a few hours later.
It was a pretty good prank, compared to some others I saw. Some of the pranks that other kids pulled got them in big trouble (if they were caught), and would likely get them arrested today, like spending days setting up an elaborate chain of thousands of firecrackers beneath the library bookshelves and setting them off during study hall (it’s amazing they didn’t burn down the school), pouring a gallon of vegetable oil onto the hallway floor, pouring gallons of vegetable oil down a flight of stairs :eek:, etc.
We did a few calls in our day. My friend had a comedy record from DJ Don Imus (the old guy who’s on MSNBC now) where he ordered 100 hamburgers from a fast food place and then started dicking with the order (stuff like pickles on the first 50, onions on burgers 40 - 75). So we decided to copy him. My friend called a McDonald’s in a neighboring town and made the order, saying he needed 200 burgers for a block party. The manager who took the call was so nice, totally amazed at this big order, offering us a small discount, etc. He asked for a phone number and we made one up on the spot. He said he’d call us about 10 minutes or so before the order would be ready. Right after, we called the number we made up. What luck! An old lady answers and she was cranky. We told her we were from McDonald’s and that she’d won 200 hamburgers. She freaks out saying she doesn’t want them; what’s she supposed to do with all that food?, etc. We tell she should throw a block party. She starts to get suspicious (no doubt due to our voices not sounding adult), and she asks for our number. We give her the McDonald’s phone number and make an excuse to put her on hold, and then we hung up.
We always wondered how the conversation went between her and McDonald’s; one of them must have called the other.
We also called a funeral parlor; I identified myself as Dr. Frankenstein and asked if they delivered. The guy on the other end said “No, but we’ll be glad to pick you up!”