[nwh]

I'll bite.

With the original story there's some feeling of comeuppance, and it's not really a huge financial burden on the company making thousands of calls a day.

In your story—illegalities aside—they're just being a complete asshole.

[jdee]

Agreed. I didn't suggest otherwise. I'm just recounting a similar story about premium rate numbers in the UK.

[vidarh]

Which is the very reason why most of the expensive premium rate numbers are now only in the 09 range and heavily regulated. You can still try doing this, but people would immediately question why you were giving them an 09 number.

The remaining premium rate problem in the UK is mainly 070 numbers, which are "personal numbers" used for forwarding services, and while there are some legitimate users, most uses these days are scammers trying to confuse people to think they're cellphone numbers.

[stevewillows]

In a sense it's no different than sending false invoices to large corporations in hopes that they won't double check for a service or product.