PLA Issue #25: Taking Over Fred Meyer’s Paging System

Taking Over Fred Meyer’s Paging System

picture of some random fred meyer store


This is an incident that happened in 1994 while I was living in Portland, Oregon. If you’ve never lived in the Northwest, you may have never heard of a department/grocery store called Fred Meyer. Fred Meyer is a large chain of stores and you can find plenty of them in Portland. Take a Wal-Mart and a very large grocery store and add a few extra things and you’ve got a Fred Meyer. They’ve got a huge grocery section, lawn & garden, a huge hardware store built in, electronics, music, software, videos, a deli, sometimes a big built-in eating area and a lot of other things that I’m probably leaving out. All in all it’s not a bad store but that didn’t stop what I did to them.

During the time this incident happened, all of the employees at Fred Meyer were on some kind of union strike so there were a bunch of temporary employees working in the stores while the strikers lounged around in front of the store, holding signs. The fact that none of the regular employees were working just added to the chaos which made it even more fun for us. We always hoped that everyone would speculate that the strikers were somehow responsible for what happened.


The Discovery…


My girlfriend, Colleen Card, and I were walking around the Fred Meyer located at the Gateway Shopping Center and eventually got separated. Since I walked all over the store and couldn’t find her (not surprising seeing as how the store is the size of a mall) I figured I’d pick up one of the paging phones that are located on posts every few isles for employees and announce all over the store for her to meet me in a certain place. I found the phone and picked it up and looked at the HUGE list of all the different departments they have to choose from and finally found the All Store Page listed at 1800. So I dial 1800 and hear a loud click throughout the store and I announce, “Colleen Card to the toy isle. Colleen Card!”

While I was waiting for her, though, the Matchbox cars got really boring by myself (Justin’s dad, the kid I met and was playing with, made him go home) so I wandered back over to the phone and noticed that all the department numbers were in the exact same format as the all store paging number. Electronics was 1296, Hardware was 1693, etc, etc. So I wrote down the two phone numbers listed on the front of that phone and put them in my pocket. Colleen arrived and we went home to a supper of Burger King Whoppers. Yeah.


The First Phone Call


By the time we finished eating, I had this big horrific plan in my head that I was pretty sure wouldn’t work but I knew I wouldn’t rest until I tried it. So the next morning while Colleen was at school I went back to the same Gateway Fred Meyer to test out my theory. Have you figured out what I’m planning to do yet? I went to the pay phone that’s located in a foyer entrance thing and made a call to the inside of the store.

“Fred Meyers customer service, may I help you?”
“Yeah, this is Dave in electronics. Could you transfer me to extension 1800? I can’t get it to work…”
“Okay, just a minute, please!”

I hear the funky Fred Meyers hold music for a split second and then total silence. I hit the “*” button and hear it echo inside the store… So I look around the foyer and there’s a few people inside with me so I can’t really say anything loud. Instead I start playing “Help Me Rhonda” on with the touch tones and my musical masterpiece echos throughout the entire store.

I couldn’t wait any longer for the people in there to leave so in a low voice I start muttering into the phone, “Fuck you alllll…You’re all going to hell. I will kill yoooooou, I am Satan…….” Now you’ll have to excuse the total lack of creativity with my first Fred Meyers speech but I couldn’t talk very loud and besides, I was excited that this actually worked! I decided to go inside and check out the reactions so I hung up.

The reactions weren’t that great when I first got inside. Walking by the photo section I heard a customer exclaim to an employee, “Did you hear that crazy guy??” But the employee wasn’t too talkative so that didn’t get anywhere. When I got to the Deli, things were considerably more active there. A guy in a suit (didn’t look like a manager, but who knows…) was talking to another important looking guy (security?) and the suit was pissed!

I went over to the Deli and pretended to look at the menus so I could listen and they were talking about me. I heard a few things to the effect of, “Well, Dan’s looking around for him right now.” and “If I catch the little fucker…” It turned out that they thought some kid in the store had picked up a paging phone and done it all. Then I noticed a few guys patroling the isles with 2-way radios on their belts. Typical security dudes. So I got bored and went back home, waiting for Colleen to get home.


The 20 Minute Broadcast


Later that evening, around 6:00 I had already told Colleen that I’d succeeded and wanted to try it again. So we picked up the phone in her room and called Fred Meyer. Again I got the service desk, asked to be transferred to extension 1800, got hold music and then dead silence.

The first thing I yelled into the phone was, “DON’T SHOP FRED MEYER!” That was the big slogan in town that the employees who were on strike were using so I thought that would liven up the whole strike thing and if nothing, make the local papers. I put on my Good Morning Vietnam CD which starts out with Robin Williams yelling, “Goooooood morning, Vietnam!” and plays the clips of all his best radio stuff, including all the foul language and bad jokes.

Then I played a few good clips from The Jerky Boys’s first cassette and started paging people to different departments of the store. After about twenty minutes I hung up the phone so I could call back and make sure I was really on the paging system and not just talking to myself like an idiot. So I called back.

“Fred Meyers, customer service. May I help you?”
“Could I have the shoe department, please?”
“Hold please!”

After about a minute of waiting, I finally got the shoe department. I told the lady I was Dan from security upstairs and asked her if someone was playing with her phone there on the paging system.

“Oh no, sir! That wasn’t from this phone. They think it was kids in the food isle. The security guys are looking for them right now…”


The 2 Hour Broadcast


This content is in the PLA book!  Click here to buy it. I thanked her and hung up. Now we knew we were getting through okay so I called them back and once again asked customer service to connect me to extension 1800. By this time I guess she had figured it out because she wouldn’t connect me. I called back and asked her to connect me to Lawn & Garden. When they answered, I had them connect me to 1800 with no problems. Here’s a breakdown of what our two hour broadcast consisted of:

1. Various type of store pages including….
“Customer Service to the sexual toys isle!”
“Customer Service to the anal lubrication department!”
“Customer Service to Customer Service! We don’t know what we’re doing!”
“Attention K-Mart shoppers! Don’t shop Fred Meyers!”
“Al, clean up on isle 5. Some stupid bitch just spilled her fucking milk
all over the fucking floor, the stupid cunt!”
“AT&T, Please deposit 25 cents…”
“I need a price check on this vibrating cream.”
“Security to isle ten. A lady is testing out the douches again.”
“Security to isle seven. That little boy is stealing Froot Loops…”
“Security, monitor register two. BARBARA is working again.”
“Hi, my name is ROY and if you find a furry watermelon, that’s my gerbil!”
“Chris Tomkinson is the bestest, coolest guy in the world! Cactus?”

2. Colleen’s Story Time Hour. She read a bunch of children’s books and changed
the wording around to make them quite demented and gross.

3. Harmonica Hour! Together on harmonica we didn’t sound that great but that
didn’t stop us…that alone probably got rid of most of the shoppers.

4. Voiced our opinions of political issues.

5. Told very anti-religious and racist jokes. (We’re not against religion and
not racist people, we were just trying our best to offend everyone.)

6. I played my favorite songs over the store via the local radio station, KUFO.

7. A special announcement by RBCP: “Ladies & Gentlemen, may I have your
attention please…At this moment I’d like you all to direct your attention
to the individual working in Lawn & Garden. She is the very person who
screwed up and allowed us to take over your paging system! Not that bright
of an employee if you ask me but hey, we’re dealing with Fred Meyers,
right? So ma’am, if you haven’t been fired yet…Thank You!”

8. Colleen sang “I’m a Little Teapot” while I yelled “Fuck God!”, then she
started reading off phone sex ads. Then poetry.

We finally hung up out of boredom. And because we lived quite a ways from the Gateway Fred Meyer so there wasn’t any way for us to go there and see how the customers were reacting to the incident.


Transferring The Call Ourselves


We ended up on their paging system a few other times after the 2 hour broadcast. But after getting on it so many times, they must have put out a big-time security alert or something because no department would transfer us anymore. I just had to get on it one more time, just to show them. So Colleen and I went to Gateway Fred Meyer again and here’s what we did…

  • 1. We find a phone in Isle 13 and write down the extension number off of it.
  • 2. I stay there and Colleen runs out to the pay phone.
  • 3. Colleen makes a call to the store and asks customer service for extension
    1625, which is where I’m standing.
  • 4. My phone begins to ring. I pick it up, dial TRANSFER, 1800 and hang up.
  • 5. I run out to the pay phone and we say a few things into the phone such as
    “Ha, ha! We got through! Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah!” and other assorted
    immature things.
  • 6. We get kind of bored and go home. But it WORKED! Ha!

A few days later we called from home and asked to be transferred to extension 1625. A stock boy picked up the phone and we told him exactly what to press and we got on again. They’ll never win.


An Exclusive Interview With Security


After that night it got sort of boring. I was a little upset that none of this made the papers. And not getting any press for it kind of discouraged me from doing it anymore. Once while Colleen & her dad were in the Rockwood Fred Meyer shopping, I stayed behind at a pay phone, got on the system and made a few announcements, played a few touch tone songs, etc, but their system was messed up and they couldn’t hear me very well.

So one day I’m hanging around the Portland PDX airport because I have nothing better to do. One thing has led to another and I’m sitting at a pay phone, using the fingernail clippers that I stole from the gift shop to splice open the wires to the pay phone. (The wires were just shoved up under the pay phone wall and easy to get to. I had access to three different phones, including my own.) I didn’t mean to, but instead of just stripping the outer cover off the wires, I cut it totally in half. I quickly learned which phone it was when the Japanese girl next to me looked distressed, started yelling something urgent in the phone, then hung up and went to find another phone. Whoops?

So I finally get my pay phone line and the phone line next to me bridged together. I called my partner in crime, Zak, to explain to him what I’d done. Then I patched in the dial tone from the other pay phone and called Fred Meyer in Beaverton. We had no problem getting into their all store paging. We messed around for awhile on their system and got bored with it so Zak uses HIS three-way calling to call up the Gateway Fred Meyer. We asked the customer service lady for security.

“Security, may I help you?”
“Yes, this is Roy from the Orgonian Newspaper. I was calling in regards to
your problems that I’ve been hearing about with your paging system?”
“Well, sir, that’s a problem that has been taken care of. Is what was
happening is some kids were dialing in from the outside…” Blah blah blah,
he rattled on for awhile.

After he babbled on for awhile and I asked him some more questions, I asked, “Sir, are you aware that you’re participating in a four-way phone call and right now as we speak, our voices are echoing throughout the bowels of Fred Meyer in Beaverton? Now, you say that you’re security for Gateway Fred Meyer, correct?” The line was totally silent after that, then it clicks and he’s hung up, probably frantically calling the Beaverton store to find out if it’s true. I then made an announcement, “Yes, shoppers of Fred Meyer, this is the kind of
intelligent people that you’re dealing with every day, shopping here!”

We hung up and Zak called the Beaverton Fred’s back to ask the lady if we were really on the system. She verified that we were so we asked to be transferred to extension 1800 again and she told us to please hold.

“Security, may I help you?”
“No, she must have misunderstood us. We didn’t want security, we wanted
extension 1800 so we can frollic around your paging system freely!”
“Well, sir, I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

Weeks later, another incident with security happened when I was hanging out at the Clackamas Town Center mall (The very mall that Tonya Harding used to skate in, by the way! Boy, do I feel important!) and I decided to call up Gateway Fred Meyer security. I ended up having a long conversation with the security lady. I told her I was the one responsible and she said, “I know, I have the same number on my Caller I.D. here.” which was a lie because I’d never called Fred’s from that mall.

“Well, ma’am, did you think what I did was funny?”
“No, not at all, actually.”
“I bet you smiled, though…”
“Well, yeah, until you started getting vulgar. You really upset quite a few shoppers here.”
“That was my plan, though.”
“Why?”
“Because I have no life.”


The End


There’s not really much of an ending to my story. It basically ends with us not doing it anymore because it got boring. Since all of this happened, we’ve gotten into the paging systems of Fred Meyer stores all over Portland, Oregon. About a year after all this happened, I published this story as a PLA issue and suddenly a LOT of people were getting into Fred Meyer paging systems and emailing their stories about it to me. In 1996, me and Colleen moved to Albany, Oregon and decided to try getting into the paging system there. It worked. Months later, a friend of ours managed to get into the paging system in nearby Corvallis, Oregon. By the time we moved out of Albany, they seemed to have closed all of the holes in the paging system. That was the last time we were successful at this.

The only thing I could never figure out was why couldn’t they somehow get rid of me when I was on their paging system. Why couldn’t they shut off their all store paging system? Why couldn’t they disconnect the speakers? Why couldn’t they pull the plugs on the phone for a second and then put them back in? Why couldn’t they just hang up on line two? Many times we got on various systems and stayed on for an hour at a time, saying obscene and bizzare things to all the customers in the store. They had to know that we were calling in from the outside, especially after we’d been doing it for months. But we never got disconnected once we got in. We were on the air until WE decided to hang up the phone. It seems like it would be an easy thing to kick us off, but apparently it wasn’t.

In 2001, EvilCal and I were bored and decided to call up Gateway Fred Meyer and try and get into the paging system again. The girl who answered the phone told us that there was no way to transfer to extension 1800 anymore. We told her that in 1994 we used to get on it all the time and asked her if she was working back then. She said no, but she’d heard about the incident. She seemed pretty amused that we were talking to her about it. We transferred to security and asked him about the 1994 broadcasts. He knew what we were talking about but he wasn’t amused at all. I can’t remember exactly what he said to us, I just remember him not having a sense of humor. But it’s nice to know that we’re remembered, all these years later.


Is This Still Possible Today?


As far as we know, Fred Meyer has fixed their phone system so that it can’t be done anymore. All of our adventures happened mostly in 1994 so it’s unlikely that there are any Fred Meyers left that it will work on. Of course, there are other stores. I’ve personally never been successful at getting on the paging system of any other store. Not remotely, anyway. I’ve been emailed by people plenty of times since 1995, telling me that they’d managed to get into a store’s paging system. But nobody has ever been able to prove it to me. Most large stores use some kind of phone system with their intercom so I’m betting there has to be a way to get into just about any store. It’s probably just not quite as easy today as it was with Fred Meyer in 1994.


A Few Phone Calls


  • Shoplifting Employee This guy works at the Gateway Fred Meyer and we call him up, pretending to be with store security and convince him to turn out his pockets because we think he was stealing. After he does it, we let him know that it was just a joke. Then we get him to tell us what kind of phone system the store uses and we attempt to have him transfer us to the overhead paging. But that doesn’t work. THEN we get him to hand the phone to a customer and we accuse the customer of stealing too. The real punchline is when he calls his manager over and the manager chews him out for being stupid while we listen. Unfortunately we accidentally encoded this call at a low bitrate so the quality is horrible. The people in this clip are RBCP, DEC0DER and Luvox Phreak.
  • Transfer Me To Paging This call was made on March 5th, 2004 to the Gateway Fred Meyer. RBCP asks the girl at the service desk for the paging extension and she toys with him. Then she transfers him to security who gives him quite a scare with the threat of caller ID.
  • Attempted Survey I was gonna call each department in the store and ask each employee in the store if they remembered the overhead paging incident. After transferring around a few times, I asked for the deli and for some reason they gave me customer service again. Then once again I got transferred to security and was scared out of my mind from the caller ID and police threat. Because, you know, it’s illegal to call a place of business and ask them about something you read about on the internet.

If you like this story, you’ll probably like the awful things we’ve done to Wal-Mart too. Click here to read about all that and to listen to sound clips.

Comments


02/14/06 – G.L.dld from Alaska: that was clever my friends and i loved reading it.

01/06/06 – Juan from Portland: Ironic that the most telling finger being pointed at your delustions of grandure (did I spell that correctly?) is that FRED MEYER IS ONE OF THE SPONSORS OF YOUR SITE!

01/05/06 – JP from UK: Mildly amusing. You coulda left out the racism and getting the store clerk fired though, that’s just nasty. I know, irresponsibility is fun and cool, but this is somebody’s job dude, not a half-assed internet joke

01/05/06 – Juan from Portland : Worked at Gateway in ’96/’97 and actually think I got one of your attempts. Had me going there for moment as I was new. Said Main Office had authorized a sale anouncement overhead and you were a vendor authorized to do just that. Thought about it for a moment and politely told you

12/19/05 – Fred Meyer Employee from Longview Washington: I Currently Work @ a Fred Meyer Store and the paging number is 1810 not 1800…just so ya know.

10/12/05 – John from from massachusetts: Cap. Crunch would be proud


10/09/05 – Voldemort from Switzerland: I had to laugh while reading it.


09/28/05 – sarah from oregon: i work at gateway fred meyers today i started in 2002 but you story os funny it would be alot more funnier if there was a lot less curse wirds but then what fun would that be right


09/23/05 – Mr. Bill from Overland Park, KS: What a shame you haven’t channelled your cleverness and talents into something more productive. It seems like with a little formal training and education, you could accomplish things that might help your fellow citizen. A potential benefit of this to you could be a decent salary and benefits. All it takes is thinking beyond the moment and the immediate gratification of immature actions. If you understood any of this, give it some thought.


09/18/05 – Mike from Virginia: THis is so fucking funny. You made my day with your stories! Can we call Walmart?


08/16/05 – Sarah from Vancouver, WA: That was the most entertaining thing I’ve ever read on the internet! It was even more amusing because I live about twenty minutes north of Portland, and I go there all the time. It’s the ultimate prank! I’ve notcied that most of the kids leaving comments saying they’ve done it (especially the kid below me who claimed 59 hours worth) are obviously lying for attention and crap. But yeah, I’ve made some pretty good prank calls in my life, but never anything like that! We used to prank the operators


08/09/05 – dikgoesinya from p-town: i live in beaverville or, and that was some really funny shit,cept for the adam code red dipshit” i wish had been in that store when you did that , i would have stayed till it was over , pising myself up and down every isle. hee hee hee


08/08/05 – jack from hamilton’candna: breaking in fred meyers sytem is so fun i did it last night i was on the paging system for about 59 hours last time never got caught hehe it was fun


07/18/05 – Stefanie from Portland, OR: I was actually in the store with my mom one of those times. Too bad I don’t remember it. I was only 4 or 5, but my mom told me about it.


07/12/05 – DiANNA from Portland, Oregon: That is so stupid, you really need to grow up…YOUR STUPID!!>>ITS NOT FUNNY…unless. your about 10..GROW UP!!


07/09/05 – j5 from memphisTN: most stores have a key system that runs both the electronic key sets (manager’s desk & security) and the single line telephones (on the posts and sometimes at registers) locate one of these phones and write down the brand name, model number, any other info. go to a search engine and search for [brandname]+[model number] + “userguide”. If you can figure out how to call forward an extension on the system you can create a back door.


07/04/05 – RBCP from Alton: Hey Rebecca, do a Google search for “statute of limitations” you idiot.


07/04/05 – Rebecca from Alany: I worked at the Albany store during your immature prank. Security disconnected the speakers during the first few minuets of your childish behavior. Be careful, your ‘braggingÂ’ may lead to a legal prosecution, as I have forward the address of this web site to store security.


06/20/05 – Exodus27 from Find Out Where I Live: i dunt give out where i live but i belive this takes professionsal’s i wouldnt recomend anyone to try something like dis…..


06/09/05 – Jordan from Portland: Why they couldn’t hang up: On most paging systems when you transfer a call it becomes “owned” by the extension you sent it to. Because the paging system doesn’t have a hand-set there’s no way to hang up on a call that has been transferred to it. I’ve seen it at places where people mis-dial when getting their voice-mail and all the punches and voice-mail prompts echo over the store. The only way out of it is a) for the person to hang up or b) for someone to power-down the entire phone system.


05/19/05 – — from Eugene: hang on I could write more but i might just mail in a tutorial.


05/19/05 – Tyler from Eugene, OR: I’ve worked at fred meyer for 5 years.. this is legit but the people at the desk are dumb as hell for transferring an outside line to the overhead page number. (because every employee knows that numnber). almost all fred meyer stores use the same phone extensions. – nowadays overhead pages are 1810 or 1801 (1801 overrides 1810 and covers a few more departments like aparrel and home that the other one wont’t) you can also pick up any store phone and use the system speed dial to get into any….


05/13/05 – www.thrillnerds.com from Virginia: I have some friends trying to get into the system at walmart, kmart, and giant.


03/21/05 – abanaba from Eugene: Funny, but this legend is all over the place, about various stores…..


01/12/05 – Bill from Portland: Low Tech Morons I Say, Low tech…. Turn off the movie “Hacker’s” and find something really cool to do besides offending the very people you probably live with or even under.


12/02/04 – Sniper from Dallas: I called a large maunufacturing plant here in Dallas, My friend works there. I said I was Jim in the Maintenance dept and asked to be transferred to the paging system to check the radio interupt system. (made up request) Click – Bingo…I was online for about 15 minutes before they shut me down. 15 minutes of the most vulgar obscene racially charged hate you ever heard. My buddy almost cut his fingers off laughing and trying to work…lol


09/06/04 – ronnie gill from hamilton ohio: yea hello thire i am so sorry 4 my lack of spelling last time.But if you all vist hamilton ohio plesae vist the meijer store in hamilton ohio and try to get on the paging symtem thire.It would be so cool if some could get on ours on day that would be some funny shit lol .the phone #s to the stroe are513 8962600 and the paging number is 79 4 all stroe page and all deperment numbers are all the same like 401 402 403 410 you get the pitcher haha


08/31/04 – it me aning ronnie gill from hamilton ohio: i forgot to tell you all somthing if you all this plesae do this durning thrid or 3thrid shift because thrie is no one thire to stop any one realeyit would be so damm funnie if some one know this and the phone nubers to the stroe is 513 8962600 513 8962609


08/31/04 – ronnie from hamilton ohio: now that was some damm shit that rocked. if you ever vist the meijer strore in hamilton ohio plesae try to get in our paging symtem the phone number to the hamilton ohio location is 5138924934 and the extion is 79 and all dept nubers going in the same senqiues witch is 401 402 403 and so on if any one who can think they can do it plesae do so thanks


08/24/04 – expressobongo from London Uk: Good stuff. More surreal humor would make it even better.


08/21/04 – Jeremy S, from Portland, OR: but there is a way….


08/21/04 – Jeremy S from Portland, OR: hehe, my friend used to work at the fred meyers in portland on johnson creek….. The extension is 8787, and I tried to get customer service to transfer me, and she said.. “do you know what extension that is?” and I said yes, and she transfered me to security, anyways, we didnt try to go through any other departments, instead I went on the floor and got the extension of a phone and transfered to extension 8787… and I heard the music shut off with a loud click… but nothing, he could’nt talk,


08/16/04 – Charles Mitchell from Middletown, NY: Was just out to Sumna, Washington, visited your store, find it is great and would like to shop their in the ladies department etc by internet. My email is Cfm7193952@aol.com. Thanks


08/12/04 – KelsoKid17 from North BumFuck Egypt: Get on a paging line and in an official tone say “Attention all employees, This is (store name) security, we are going into a Code Adam Lockdown” the resulting mayhem includes employees closing and locking doors, security sending men running about the store,and usually several government vehicles like police cars, ambulances and the occasional fire engine arriving at the front doors. Code Adam is a nationwide program that prevents lost kids in a large store.


08/12/04 – KelsoKid17 from North BumFuck Egypt: Try a place like Target, Wally-World, or if you wanna get fancy, try Nordstroms in Portland, OR( Nordstroms- a store only found in the Qwest territories that is usually two stories tall and is too rich for any phreakers blood)


07/15/04 – Sick Fuck from Chicago, IL: Emmanuel Goldstein would shit a gold brick if he saw this, then he would emit a 2600hz tone out of his ass. This has to be my fave, tx 4 being 31337, fux0r5


06/24/04 – HTML from Great State of IL: I believe i just got on the Gateway Fred Meyer Paging system! I asked them to transfer me to the “food” department. I then said that the person who anwsered the phone must have been hard of hearing, can you transfer me to extension 18-hundred? they said shure, i herd the hold music for 1/2 sec then2 beeps and finally dead silence…. said some b/s and yelled to check out PLA!!


06/21/04 – liz from oregon: hey man that is ….well it cool and keep trying to hack other sytems.


06/04/04 – joeseph from portland: You all are a bunch of fucking no life losers. Go play with your magic cards


05/24/04 – dia pason from ohio: i did that at a local wal mart here in ohio but the funny part was i was on my cell phone at the time so they go to hear my hole day it cool when u have friends that work there and passed this page to the and the wanted to try it so they got me the ex # its 2232


05/18/04 – Probably Crazy from The NW: I work security at fred meyer and I have to admit–this killed me..No, I’ve never heard of any of these incidents before and if it happened in my store right now I would be totally pissed but good lord, the creativity :) Glad you had fun..keep us on our toes


05/16/04 – James from Idaho: Awesome, on the 2K5 calls arent you able to block your number its *67 here, that way they can’t threaten you with caller id. Keep it up


05/13/04 – Travis from Ohio: Now that’s some funny shit. Hell, I would try at at the local Meijer store. Either that or maybe Kmart.


05/12/04 – PSYCHO from Sydney, Australia: This is fucking great


05/12/04 – Manuel Hung from Secret: I call shennanigans, sir….


04/19/04 – Erume Goodbrick from Where the Wild Things Are: This is far better work than hitting Snoop Dogg’s limo with a roll of toilet paper. Nicely done!


03/31/04 – gullous from washington: good job, im going to do that


03/26/04 – David B. from Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Thanks for the laughs!


03/19/04 – Tech from Finland: That was great. Good job!


03/11/04 – Brandon from albany oregon: I used to work at fred meyer last year and theyre code over here is 1810 for all store page but they also have the emergency all store page which will over take the 1810 in case of emergnency and its 1805, and in orientation they told us they had someone call in and do that so they told us never to transfer anyone to 1810 or 1805 so yea it still works but the customer service phones have caller id so watch out there.


03/10/04 – kathleen from san francisco: What I want to know is, what were you doing crossing a picket line? Come on now, respect the strike.


03/06/04 – Dave from Ontario: I work as a customer service rep over the phone and actually found myself speaking with a Fred Meyer employee today..I had to ask if she had heard of your praank. She seemed thrown off at the question, but sure enough she said that she had heard the story from other employees and people from the area..whats that, 10yrs ago now? Halarious man.


03/06/04 – jared from mn: sean, you idiot: 1. wal-mart has existed long before 1994. 2. the anarchy @ wal-mart you’re referring to was put together by phonelosers.org. that’s why the url for it is www.phonelosers.org/wal-mart/


03/05/04 – sean from tn: uhh yeah, were you the priginal ones to do this or did you get the idea from anarchywallmart.com maybe walmart didnt even exist back in 1994, maybe they stole all their phone call jokes and pagings from this site, just wondering if you were the original or if this idea was stolen.


03/05/04 – name from location: do movie theaters have paging systems


03/05/04 – yo mama from whore house: thats some funny shit


03/05/04 – Kevin is an idiot from Alton: “Cap. Crunch would be proud.” Capt. Crunch give deep tissue massage to young boys. Really. Who cares how proud he is


03/05/04 – JJ from La Puente, California: That happen once at the Walmart in La Puente but it was from the Inside phones in the warehouse!!! it waz the zhits!!!


03/02/04 – P^2 from Athens, GA: Dude, you are my Hero! Keep up the good work!!!


03/02/04 – Jerry From Utah from MN: Jerry from Utah, it may not have been creative, and even if he was preteen, at least he has better grammer and spelling. Dumbass.


03/02/04 – Stormy from New York: Man, I used to work at a supermarket and that was some funny shit


03/02/04 – mike from Wisconsin: fuck yeah


03/02/04 – josiah from Portland: Hey man, i know the exact Freddy’s you were at, nice job!


03/02/04 – water from from: my name is jesus….ok its not jesus its me again


03/02/04 – me again from here: greg from texas…ur cool cuz my name is greg too….rock that name dude….rock it


03/02/04 – mike from missouri: im just about the dumbest fuck ive ever heard in my life. how have i not yet been picked off by the dominant humans?


03/02/04 – Greg from Texas: Thats fucking hilarious… way to go :)


03/02/04 – but seriously from the guy who said all that: prank was good. i admire your use of free time


03/02/04 – mike from missouri: wal-mart uses #96 for their paging if that helps anyone


03/02/04 – michelle from NEW MEXICO!!!: gizzle diz shit wiz biggidy wig…fly jig word holla bling….im a stupid whore who enojoys sticking fish into my vagina


03/02/04 – scott from massachusetts: i smell like fecal matter and i touch my little brother until i ejaculate


03/02/04 – john from massachusetts: im also a douchebag and lick vaginal discharge off of tampons…


03/01/04 – Scott from Massachusetts: someone has to attack walmart like that


03/01/04 – The Ender from ST MArys MD: you’re an a$$hole. very funny


03/01/04 – Adam from Portland: i love how you jacked up gateway and clackamas…..those bastards deserve it


03/01/04 – jerry from Utah: You could of been a hell of alot more creative… shit you did sounded like a bunch of pre teens did it… unless your a preteen that is


03/01/04 – John from Massachusetts: Amazing. Purely and simply amazing. Probably the greatest prank I’ve ever read.


03/01/04 – bradjward.com from springfield IL: you r0x0r my b0x0rz


03/01/04 – Michelle from SE New Mexico: THAT, my friends, rocks the mother friggin’ hizzle. Word.


03/01/04 – Tripzee from Ottawa: Awesome arcticle, great job :-)


03/01/04 – PsyoniX from Houston, Tx.: Man, I’m going to have to try this


03/01/04 – Kevin from London: j00 r0xorz!! One of the last truly great Phone Phreakz, Cap. Crunch would be proud. <3


03/01/04 – Scott from Idaho: That is some funny shit!


Feel free to post your own comments about this PLA issue in our forums. If you’d prefer to make a general comment about phonelosers.org, try signing our guestbook instead.

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23 thoughts on “PLA Issue #25: Taking Over Fred Meyer’s Paging System

  • May 26, 2008 at 7:27 am
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    Oh my gosh this is priceless. You’re an inspiration to all mischeif makers!

  • November 16, 2008 at 5:24 pm
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    awesome as fu*k i wish the phreaking days of old weren’t the “the days of old” i just caught this because i was treated like shit by some fatfu*k dirtbag “manager” who wouldn’t return something that was actually totally legit (which is pretty nice of ME) anyhoo wanted/want revenge but creatively and it’s gotten so much tougher.. i used to be a pretty dedicated phreaker/hacker kid in the early to mid 90’s but lived in the bay area… wew had plenty of fun there don’t get me wrong… somewhere i swear i heard about this long ago but again it’s great in detail… mad props….

  • December 23, 2008 at 10:51 pm
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    Ok guys I got a back door number to the fred meyers in wherever that guy on here wanted it…Anyway it is 5138962609 and it will just give you a dial tone and from there you dial any extension you want.

    I havent messed with it to much yet but I do know that the intercom is ext 79 based upon what I read but the override in the system requires a 3 digit number so it will need some working on.

    Me and my partners recently did a prank on the infamous bounty hunter Duane “dog” Chapman’s son Leland Blaine Chapman…We will be posting it up soon. Check us out at http://www.phonepranksters.blogspot.com or http://www.celebrityprankcalls.com we have real celebrity phone numbers and we have tapes of our work so feel free to stop by our blog to hear calls or our site to hear sound boards. If you have a good enough idea we might be able to provide you with a celebrity phone number.

  • February 9, 2009 at 11:33 pm
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    Yeah, my store Meijer uses the phone-intercom system and they fixed the glitch after someone played salsa music. What Meijer does is have a second phone number that dials into the remote phone system. You need to know the extensions (4 + the department number.) A lot of stores have sheets posted with very old department data on them. Back when they had more than five black cord phones. However, you can’t dial the intercom anymore from the outside, but you can still manage with the cord and wireless phones. However, if you do grab a black phone from an employee that might have put it carelessly down, you can dial it in if you can guess the intercom #. I don’t think it’s listed.

  • March 11, 2009 at 4:15 am
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    Hello,

    This is Fred Meyer. I am very disappointed in you people. I’m going to sell all my stores now and open up a chain of Florist shops that specialize in cacti.

  • May 12, 2009 at 11:07 pm
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    to any who read this i just want you to know, walmart uses IP phones

  • June 6, 2009 at 12:15 pm
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    Ah, up until 2002 or so i lived in Scapoose, OR. Of course, now i live in IL…

  • August 9, 2009 at 10:16 pm
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    absolutely brilliant. will be keeping this in mind when im in wal-marts and everything else now. let you know if i make any fun progress.

    and honestly, people are coming on here to tell you your immature and stupid… they are the ones who actually took the time to come to this site, knowing what it was about probably. these are the people who read the whole story. these are the people who think that what you say on the internet actually matters. these are the EFFIN RETARDS!

    props to you and anybody else who can eff with people just right

  • January 27, 2010 at 8:12 am
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    hahahahaha fuck this made me laugh, awesome prank totally awesome if only the world had more pranksters like you, it would be a lot less serious man I would piss myself laughing if I heard anything like that happen here *wiping tears of laughter from eyes* hehe awesome

  • February 24, 2010 at 9:56 pm
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    You are a dick. Maybe you don’t understand that the shit you pulled takes people away from their job duties. Retailers lose so much money as it is and we end up paying for it by adding extra security because of douchbags like you. I hope you are proud of yourselves for being idiots and costing the rest of us money…including you. You are a dumbass.

  • March 18, 2010 at 7:37 am
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    Keener, everything you just said was catagorically wrong.

    u mad?

  • Pingback: Walmart having Issues Again. - The RadioReference.com Forums

  • June 9, 2010 at 6:18 am
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    Just so yall know the codes for wal mart phones have been changed because of someone being a racist over the intercom

  • August 9, 2011 at 3:08 pm
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    Fred Meyer’s used to be on a ROLM system, then only withing the last few yearrs cutting over to a digtal system of some kins. My friends and me ysed to do kinda shit line this with the K-Mart on NE Anderesen Road in Vancover WA years ago and they were on a ROLM system then as well (extention 7100. :^O )

    ROLMs were notoriusly easy to break into (read: fun to play with) from put side lines any way, even when runnin gin automated mode.

  • March 12, 2012 at 6:40 pm
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    Freds in PDX & Vancuover now uses x1810 for it’s paging. Just thought id’ put this here for safekeeping!

  • October 5, 2013 at 10:24 am
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    Why don’t you have the audio recordings of you trying to get Kalli to let you on the PA at the Gateway Fred Meyer? Where did they go? Illegality maybe?

    Juan

  • October 5, 2013 at 10:30 am
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    Juan – I don’t know why I didn’t make any recordings of anything. I could have easily recorded the phone calls of us getting on or set up a recorder in a store by a speaker to capture our broadcasts. Guess I was just lazy.

  • October 8, 2013 at 3:04 pm
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    Not true.

    You recorded and posted a phone conversation you had with Kali (of course you wouldn’t know her name was Kali, but I would) at Gateway Fred Meyer in 1998 during which you asked her to transfer you to extention 1800 and she politely declined your request. Don’t forget, I was I worked there at the time.

    I listened to the recording about 8 years ago on this site. You have since removed it.

    i’m not calling you a lier *?*. I don’t see how you could have forgoten this. Your simply not being truthful or you really were not involved in any of this and are now just along for the ride.

    Would you please delineate more precisely which of your stories are true and which ones are lies?

    Please explain.

    Juan

  • January 5, 2015 at 6:26 pm
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    I work at FM. I would absolutely LOVE for someone to do that now. Idk if you can get it from the outside, but the all store paging extension is 1810 now… Teehee

  • August 18, 2017 at 4:55 pm
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    This was an absolute goddamn gold mine!!! I was laughing so hard reading all the bizarre crap you pulled I had tears running down my face and couldn’t breathe! Best Friday afternoon at my boring job ever. Thank you so very much for sharing the insanity and especially for the recordings you do have!

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