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View Full Version : Uh Oh OchocincO's



Brutus
09-30-2010, 06:23 PM
Apparently the OchocincO's are inadvertently leading to other kind of O's.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=5632476


CINCINNATI -- Charity-minded callers are getting intercepted by a sex phone line because of a misprint on Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco's namesake cereal boxes.

Because of a wrong toll-free prefix for a number listed on Ochocinco's cereal, callers are directed to a phone sex line instead of a children's charity.
The phone number is supposed to connect callers to Feed the Children, which benefits from sales of "Ochocinco's." But because the box has the wrong toll-free prefix, they get a seductive-sounding woman who makes risque suggestions and then asks for a credit card number.

So fitting this happened to Chad's brand.

Redhook
09-30-2010, 08:47 PM
While this sucks for Chad and is embarrassing, it could actually help sell more cereal and make more money for the kids. While it's not good advertising, it's still advertising, right? Despite all his shenanigans, this idea is a good one by el' Ocho.

Eric_the_Red
10-01-2010, 07:04 AM
At least some part of the Bengals offense is exciting. Hay-ooo!

MWM
10-01-2010, 08:59 AM
The same thing happened to me in my last job. An old 800# was supposed to be removed from all of our packaging, but the printing company forgot to remove it from a few of them.

What happens is squatters buy up old inactive 800 #s and route these numbers to adult content service knowing something like this is bound to happen. The easiest fix to this problem is to have the 800# shut down allowing the squatters to sell to a desparate company trying to avoid PR nightmares. This sounds like extortion, but apparently is legal. It was royal PITA to resolve, but it's happened more often than you might think.

Redhook
10-01-2010, 09:23 PM
The same thing happened to me in my last job. An old 800# was supposed to be removed from all of our packaging, but the printing company forgot to remove it from a few of them.

What happens is squatters buy up old inactive 800 #s and route these numbers to adult content service knowing something like this is bound to happen. The easiest fix to this problem is to have the 800# shut down allowing the squatters to sell to a desparate company trying to avoid PR nightmares. This sounds like extortion, but apparently is legal. It was royal PITA to resolve, but it's happened more often than you might think.

Interesting. Didn't know that, but it makes perfect sense for the scammers of the world.

bucksfan
10-05-2010, 03:26 PM
We recently changed our company global conference call service provider, and hence have to use different #'s from the ones we were used to. There are 2 primary #'s I end up using, depending on which region of the world we are dealing with in the particular call (basically a European and a North America only one). They have 2 different prefixes an 866 vs. 888.

I had convinced myself I finally had our 2 new #'s memorized, so in one particular meeting I did not even open the attachment with the conf call #'s - just confidently dialed from memory. Needless to say I did not reach any work colleagues (at least not that I know of)!!! Turns out I interchanged the 888 with the 866, otherwise getting the rest of the # correct, there by directly me to some adult phone service. I found out, after making a couple quick calls to cover/explain myself in case someone is tracking that sort of thing, that I was not the first to do that in our company.

TheBigLebowski
10-07-2010, 07:37 AM
This story is over a week old and it still cracks me up.

RFS62
10-07-2010, 07:42 AM
I had a software company back in the 80's and our first 800 number was one digit removed from the Metamucil hotline.

Sooooooo, we got about a dozen calls a day from irate Metamucil users needing help, all of whom had misdialed the Metamucil number by one digit and got us instead.

It was funny for about 4 hours. Then it lost all of its charm.

We had to change the number. You've never talked to a more irate person than one who can't figure out how to use their Metamucil.

RichRed
10-07-2010, 12:38 PM
irate Metamucil users

Let's just stop for a minute and think about how hilarious this simple phrase is.

TheBigLebowski
10-07-2010, 01:18 PM
Let's just stop for a minute and think about how hilarious this simple phrase is.

:beerme: