Hacker News Reader

Comment by tata71 | Hacker News Reader

If it's the emergency number you're calling, and the operator doesn't understand the pizza/repairman etc code, they're poorly trained/suited for the job.

View on HN

If you call 911 and request a pizza, you might be pranking them or you might be under duress. Curious if they have a protocol for differentiating between these. I suppose if you give them your address and you're just joking you would be pretty dumb, not to mention incredibly immature to abuse emergency services.

They do, they typically will ask if you're in duress and you need assistance. You can say 'yes' without tipping the person you're with off. The problem is most people in duress won't think to call the cops.

It does have risks since the 3 digit dial looks distinctive. Or things like redial that could give it away.

9110000000000 as many times as needed.

Does this actually work on mobiles?

Yep. Same thing with 1800xx911xx (and so on). I made that mistake as a kid with my parents' old unactivated phone. That's when I learned any mobile phone can call emergency services.

This is an item in the 911 operator game. The description of the call is https://911-operator.fandom.com/wiki/Undercover_pizza

An example of the gameplay with that call is https://youtu.be/tEpyboLQ7bk?t=360

And an actual dispatcher call https://youtu.be/ZJL_8kNFmTI

I assume they will visit you and if you pranked them you will get a pretty expensive pizza without the pizza part.

there's a couple youtube videos floating around where the operator initially is pissed off that somebody is pranking them, but catches on pretty quick. the tone of a kid being annoying and a victim in distress is pretty different.

Does anyone have a link to a video or a call transcription?

@shagie posted a few examples in a sibling comment

"Please, before you fire that gun, let me order my last pizza". Totally believable.

"I'm sorry for screwing up lunch, should I order a pizza instead?"

"We've been here for five hours, everyone is hungry. Can we get some food, like order a pizza or something?"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com