A witty woman came up with a brilliant prank to teach a man a lesson after he sent her his number through DMs.
Emily Cain, a student at Northumbria University, shared a screenshot of the hilarious exchange on Twitter, explaining she decided to ‘take advantage’ after the unidentified guy shared his mobile phone number.
The 18-year-old had been introduced to the enthusiastic man through a mutual friend, but they had only ever spoken online, meaning he didn’t have her mobile number. So when he took things to the next level by sending over his digits, Emily saw a golden opportunity.
Rather than identifying herself via text, the student came up with a message which appeared to have come from an animal adoption agency and sent it to the unsuspecting man, who she creatively added to her contacts as ‘Guy’.
It read:
Thank you and congratulations! You have successfully adopted Bubbles the chimp! £7.50 will be charged to your bill per month. To cancel this subscription without any further being charged, just reply to this message with the word STOP.
Speaking to UNILAD, Emily explained she decided to pull a prank because she knew the guy had ‘good banter’, so she wanted to give him a run for his money. She’s not sure exactly why she decided to go down the ‘adopt a chimp’ route, but when the idea came to her she couldn’t resist.
Emily included a cute picture of a baby chimp to the message to make the prank even more convincing, though she took a risk by using one of the very first results on Google to do so. Her entire plot could have come crashing down if her victim had done a quick online search, but thankfully he didn’t get that far.
Instead, the recipient panicked and attempted to get out of the apparent subscription, replying: ‘STOP’.
Any normal subscription service would have probably been cancelled following that response, but not Emily’s made up service. Instead, no matter how many times he wrote ‘STOP’, ‘Guy’ found himself signing up for more commitments, which included paying for Bubbles’ food and water and adopting Bubbles’ ‘poorly mother’, Bonnie.
All in all, the poor guy racked up a total of £24.50 a month in fake subscription fees, much to his annoyance. On the bright side, Emily did throw in a cuddly toy version of Bubbles, but the panicked man wasn’t having it and started to take his anger out on the ‘automated’ system.
He wrote:
I swear to god if any money comes out of my account on direct debit I’m going to the police. You horrible b*stards
Eventually the frustrated man demanded he get ‘SUPPORT’, and Emily ‘transferred’ him to the fake company’s support officer, which was, of course, still her.
The 18-year-old then received a desperate message, reading:
Hello, hope you’ve had a good Christmas. I received a text message today regarding me paying a monthly direct debit to save a monkey.
Could I cancel all of the direct debits to my account please? I didn’t sign up for them. Thanks.
After deeming her prank a success, Emily decided to reveal the truth.
She text the number once again, writing:
You’ve been pranked by the prank patrol, love from Emily Cain xxx.
Realising he’d been well and truly swindled, the man responded:
You horrible c*nt.
After sharing screenshots of the conversation on Twitter, Emily said she received mixed reactions from readers, with one calling her ‘disrespectful’ while another said she’d reached ‘troll level one million’.
She told UNILAD she didn’t expect the guy to react how he did, but once the fear of losing money had passed the 18-year-old said her victim actually found the situation ‘hilarious’.
The pair are still in contact, though Emily advised people to ‘watch this space’ because she ‘might have another prank pending’. Her friends better be on high alert!
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Emily Brown first began delivering important news stories aged just 13, when she launched her career with a paper round. She graduated with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University, and went on to become a freelance writer and blogger. Emily contributed to The Sunday Times Travel Magazine and Student Problems before becoming a journalist at UNILAD, where she works on breaking news as well as longer form features.