More Phone Number Insanity

from the silly-speculators dept

Mon, Apr 12th 2004 11:30pm — Mike Masnick

You may recall last year when a Chinese airline bought the phone number 8888 8888 for $280,000. The number 8 is often considered lucky in Chinese culture. At the time, we compared it to the excesses of domain name speculation though, in their defense, the airline says they bought the phone number because it was easy to remember and not because of any superstitious beliefs. However, it appears that things were just starting to ramp up. The latest news is that the phone number 135 8585 8585 has been sold for $1.1 million. According to the article, the pronunciation of the phone number could be loosely translated into "let me be rich be rich be rich be rich." Of course, one would have to be rich to spend $1.1 million on a phone number - and you have to wonder how much longer someone who throws money away like that will remain wealthy.

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