Phone Rage and an OTP Flood

Tue, 29 Apr 2025 10:25:30 +0000

I called a few movers in Chennai, including “Unicorn Packers & Movers”, listed at 7015580411.

He couldn’t understand what I said. I said, “We’re shifting to a house in Mylapore,” and he asked, “Shifting house where in Hyderabad?” (The reason became clear later.)

It seemed I had the wrong number, so I said, “No, sorry, we need someone else,” and hung up.

His phone rage began. He called back and said, “Why did you wake me up and waste my time?” From his tone it was clear I couldn’t say anything helpful. From the quality of my signal it was clear I couldn’t have a meaningful conversation. So I just put the phone down without cutting it.

He called me again. I answered and left the phone on the table.

That’s when the phone rage began. He called me 5 times from 9467186002 and twice from 7015580411. I answered and left the phone on the table.

Then the SMS flood hit. Between 2:47 pm and 2:55 pm, he sent me 40 OTPs:

6 from KukuFM: An Indian audio app for podcasts, audiobooks, and short lessons.
5 from Hyundai: A global car maker that sells vehicles in India.
4 from Zepto: A rapid-delivery startup for groceries and essentials.
4 from ZestMoney: A finance app that lets you buy now and pay in EMI, no credit card needed.
3 from Samsung Shop: Samsung’s online store for browsing and buying its electronics.
3 from Confirmtkt: An online service for booking train tickets via IRCTC.
3 from My11Circle: A fantasy-cricket game where you build virtual teams and win cash prizes.
3 from Aakash Institute: A coaching center for medical and engineering entrance exams.
2 from JioCinema: Jio’s OTT service with movies, shows, and originals.
2 from NetMeds: An online pharmacy for medicines and health products.
2 from AJIO: A fashion and lifestyle e-commerce site by Reliance Retail.
2 from Jar: A savings app that rounds up your spend and saves the extra.
1 from RummyCircle: An online rummy card game.

After a break, he tried again at 3:17 pm with less energy:

1 from ZestMoney
1 from Samsung Shop

To me, it was instructive. I learnt about KukuFM, Jar, Ajio, My11Circle and many others. I also know which services to annoy people with OTPs. If you want to prank-spam OTPs, here’s your hit list!

My apologies to the man I awoke – hope he gets some sleep. And thanks for teaching me something new!

PS: The featured image was generated using the prompt: Edit this image so that this photo of me looks at a smartphone as a surreal storm of OTP notifications rains down around me.

Here’s ChatGPT’s version of that. Yes, that’s vaguely like me.

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