Posted on 08/29/2020 1:10:07 AM PDT by nickcarraway
“I cannot sleep anymore,” he reportedly stated. “I start shaking every time I hear a scooter on the street.”
It’s one of the oldest pranks in the (telephone) book: ordering an unwanted pizza to someone’s house. (It’s even happened to the Queen of England!) But at what point does the gag stop being funny? For a man in Belgium, after nine years of pizza delivery, he was finally fed up enough to turn to the press.
Jean Van Landeghem and the pizzas that have plagued him for nearly a decade have become a global phenomenon after the Belgian site Het Laatste Nieuws—one of the country’s oldest and most popular (and completely legitimate) newspapers—shared the Turnhout resident’s bizarre tale late last month.
“It started nine years ago,” Van Landeghem was translated as saying by the English-language site The Brussels Times. “Suddenly, a pizza delivery man handed me a whole load of pizzas. But I hadn’t ordered anything.”
The pizzas—or sometimes other delivery standards like kebabs—kept coming. For a while, he said he thought the whole thing was a mix up: the result of a pizza lover repeatedly getting his own address wrong. Eventually, however, Van Landeghem realized the intension had to be malicious.
“I cannot sleep anymore. I start shaking every time I hear a scooter on the street. I dread that someone will come to drop off hot pizzas yet another time,” he was quoted as saying. “It can be on a weekday or during weekends, and at any time of day. [The orders come from] delivery services in Turnhout, but also from the surrounding area. I have even had orders delivered to me at 2:00 a.m.”
As a small silver lining, Van Landeghem said the annoying pranks don’t cost him anything, but beyond being a headache for himself, the restaurants also face the repercussions. “I have always refused the deliveries, so I have never paid for anything,” he stated. But at one point, in January of last year, ten different deliveries reportedly showed up at his door, one for 14 pizzas. “It costs them money and they have to throw the food away. On the day that ten deliveries showed up, I did the math: it cost [$510].”
And the devious details don’t stop there, apparently. “A friend of mine who lives in Herenthout [about 17 miles away] is going through exactly the same thing as I am. She has been receiving pizza she has not ordered for nine years, too,” he continued, suggesting the prankster is likely a mutual acquaintance. “Sometimes we both get them on the same day. When that happens, we warn each other to expect a delivery.”
The whole story may leave you skeptical. How many pizzerias are in the area? And how have they not caught on to the fake orders and flagged the address? But along with the story, Het Laatste Nieuws even published an image of Van Landeghem with stacks of delivery receipts as proof.
And yet, despite reporting the situation to the police, Van Landeghem said he’s still unsure who the culprit is. “I cannot take it anymore,” he said according to The Brussels Times. “When I find out whoever has been bothering me for the past nine years, it will not be their best day.” My guess is he will not celebrate with a pizza party.
Best way to fix this is for the pizza companies to charge for the pizza before delivery. He would soon get bored of paying good money to send a pizza to someone else’s house at his own expense.
No kidding. Print a “never deliver to this address” card and give it to all the local pizza joints, and it wouldn’t take more than a month or two for all the places to accept and learn to help the poor dude.
Well certainly if they’ve sent more than two for three pizzas to the same address and it was a mistake then make somebody pay first. Or just don’t deliver there at all.
I thought caller ID ended prank phone calls for all time. Guess not. Maybe I will call up a tobacco store later today and ask them if they have Sir Walter Raleigh in a can.
I thought it was Prince Albert...
I think this story is fake. He says he always refuses the orders and has never paid, but is shown with a stack of delivery receipts? And the article mentions the paper as being “completely legitimate”? Something’s funny here. Anyway, it’s got us thinking and talking small talk, so what the heck. I’ll look up the name of the paper.
Is your refrigerator running?
Ha. Probably depended on which brand they sold in your region.
Belgium is influential, but it’s not a big country. Seems like this man could make a few appearances on a few morning shows and make it public knowledge that he wants no more deliveries.
This would be a good place for investigative journalism, if people still do much of that these days. Apparently the police can’t be bothered. Too busy arresting anyone who posts an anti Muslim remark on Facebook or Twitter.
They’re stupid is why. If you’re that stupid for nine years, you deserve no sympathy.
But with the world getting unkinder by the day (thinking that "Love thy Neighbor" is not good; throwing out Judeo-Christian values), folks are going to have to deal with this at all levels more and more.
What I would do it to keep a database of phone numbers, phone ID logs, addresses on a backed up computer. Then flags the phone numbers or addresses abused.
When the order comes in and is entered on the computer it flashes in BIG Letters PAY IN ADVANCE ONLY when it hits the abused number or address.
The order taker then explains to the customer "We will need your order to be paid in advance". Why asked why, to explain "This number/address has not paid in the past, so we require payment in advance at this time." If the customer demands delivery without payment (and they will), to forward the call to the manager or to give the manager's phone number and to be ready to hang up if the hint is not taken.
Private Branch eXchange is the origination of spoofing caller ID.
I bet he gets a lot of free pizzas though.
I know. What an idiot!
Put a sign on your door...
“If you are a food delivery person, I did not order the food you are attempting to deliver. You will not receive payment for the food.
Your company has been maliciously taken advantage of by an unknown prankster.
Please leave now without knocking on my door or ringing my doorbell.
You have been warned. If you knock on my door or ring my doorbell, I will sue you for harassment. Leave now without making any effort to contact me.”
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