[Smith, 1986]

A young couple living in the Bristol area had been having marital problems. Most of it was caused by the husband's bad temper and the fighting and constant arguing that had been going on for several months. Things finally came to a head one morning when the husband, just before he left on a three week business trip, told his wife they were finished and she had better get out of his house for good before he returned.

When he arrived home his wife had gone, leaving the house in an awful mess. While he was clearing up he noticed that the telephone was off the hook. He replaced it and thought no more about it.

Several weeks later the quarterly telephone bill arrived. It was astronomical — running into several thousands of pounds. He immediately queried it, only to be told that the phone had been connected to the speaking weather report in Australia for a three week period.
 

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[Marsano, 1987]

In Hollywood a man dumped his live-in girlfriend by telling her that he was off on a business trip and expected her to have cleared out of the house by the time he returned. Pretty cold, guy.

The woman left, but when the man returned, he learned that she had found what Paul Simon might call the fifty-first way to leave your lover. The house was in good order, and the only thing was that the phone was off the hook. When he picked it up, he heard incomprehensible babbling, so he hung up.

When his next phone bill arrived, it explained a couple of things. The strange language he had heard was Japanese, and it was giving the correct time. It had been giving the correct time enough to run up a bill of $80,000.