The aftermath of the prank call. (Image: KGUN9)
WOULD you smash all of the windows at your work if someone on the phone told you to?
It sounds bizarre, but that’s exactly what staff at a number of fast food outlets in the US have done after falling victim to an elaborate prank phone call over the past week.
In the calls, which targeted Burger King, Wendy’s and Jack in the Box outlets in California and Arizona, a prankster pretending to be from a fire suppression company convinced staff there was a gas leak and the windows needed to be broken for ventilation.
The first incident occurred at a Wendy’s in Phoenix, Arizona, on January 30, ABC 15 news reported. Local newspaper The Tribune told of another at a Burger King in Morro Bay, California, falling victim that same evening.
And then earlier this week, a Jack in the Box in Tucson, Arizona, became the third to fall for the prank, local news station KGUN9 reported.
Tucson Police spokesman Sergeant Pete Dugan told the station employees received the call about 1:25am on Tuesday, with the prankster saying gas levels were high and needed to be evacuated.
He told staff the windows needed to be smashed to prevent the building from exploding. A staff member complied, using his car to smash the windows, resulting in nearly $50,000 in damage.
A second Jack in the Box in the same area also received the call, but didn’t follow through. Police in all three areas are investigating the calls, which they said were illegal as they resulted in criminal damage.
It follows a similar spate of calls in December, which caused three McDonald’s restaurants in Oregon to shut down after employees were convinced to activate fire suppression systems, covering kitchens appliances in chemicals.
Fast food outlets have long been a target of hoax phone calls, most notoriously in the ‘strip search scam’ which hit the headlines in 2004 after a caller pretending to be a police officer convinced a manager to strip search and humiliate an 18-year-old McDonald’s employee.
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