November 8, 2004
Man pays $215,000 for lucky cellphone number
A "lucky" cellphone number; 133-3333-3333 (3 is considered a very lucky number in China) has been bough up in Beijing for $215,000, according to Engadget.
Related lucky number stories
-- Previously reported last April, an online bidder in China offered to pay 9 million yuan (US$1.1 million - placed at the 70th bid) for a "lucky" mobile phone number. The winning bid for the phone number, 135 8585 8585, when prounounced in Chinese sounds similar to "let me be rich be rich be rich be rich".
-- In August 2003, telephone number, 8888 8888, fetched 2.33m yuan ($280,000) at a special telecom auction in the province of Sichuan. The winner was a Chinese airline:
"An eight-digit number containing only the number eight is considered especially auspicious. 'Everyone at the company believes the number was worth the price we paid,' Xing Bing, a spokesperson for Sichuan Airlines, told the Associated Press news agency. The company is said to be planning to use the number for a 24-hour customer hotline.
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