phone numbers?

Question

Has anyone else noticed that in like games and movies and stuff, whenever a phone number is read off or mentioned or whatever, the first three numbers are always 555. does anyone else know what i'm talking about? and if so, why is that? is it a legal thing or what?

Answer 1

Using numbers such as 555 guarantee that no one playing the game or watching the move/show will end up calling an actual person if they try to dial the number. Wouldn't you be a little upset if your number was in a movie and random people started calling you?

Answer 2

n North America, telephone numbers with the prefix 555 are widely used for fictitious phone numbers in television shows, films, computer games, and other media.

Not all numbers that begin with 555 are fictional—for example, 555-1212 is one of the standard numbers for directory assistance throughout the United States and Canada. In fact, only 555-0100 through 555-0199 are now specifically reserved for fictional use, with the other numbers having been released for actual assignment. How, exactly, this will interact with the many uses of 555-2368 (long the "standard" fake number) by AT&T and other telephone companies, is no clearer than the reason for the choice of "2368".

Answer 3

When they first started making movies they used real numbers... and people would call those numbers driving the user of the number crazy. So the phone company (AT&T) gave the movie and TV peeps the 555 area code to stop having people call.

Answer 4

Easy answer. Films and games companies can't use a real number otherwise whomever owns that number could sue them. Very few people have 555 numbers so there is a less of a chance of somebody having that number.

Answer 5

well they have to make it a number that isnt real so people dont call it and accually get people and 555 numbers are for the phone companies like verizon or at&t