Story By: Alex Cope, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Asia Wire Report

This man who spent over 2,000 GBP on a phone number he thought was lucky has been bombarded with calls after the number appeared as the villain’s contact number on a TV show.

The bizarre incident after the man, whose surname is Shen, splashed out 20,000 RMB (2,280 GBP) on a new phone number which ends with 888 as the number eight is considered lucky in China.

However, the man’s luck quickly turned when his new phone number was featured as the contact number for a villain in the popular TV series ‘Skynet Action’.

Pictures Credit: AsiaWire & AsiaWire/Cheng Ji Yingshi Wenhua

He says he then began to receive such a high number of calls that he had to constantly keep his phone on the do-not-disturb mode.

Shen said that at first, he assumed they were just prank calls but then he began to realise something different could be afoot as he was receiving calls in the early hours of the morning which were keeping him away.

He eventually answered one of the calls and asked the person on the other end how they had found his number.

The person on the line said a criminal in the show gave the number to cops and Shen now says he is planning to sue the show’s producers and the video platform which broadcasts it, Youku.

Local media report telecoms companies in China do not give film or TV production companies lists of dummy phone numbers to use on screen.

Reports state that earlier this year a man was awarded 35,000 RMB (4,001 GBP) when he sued a production company for using his phone number during an episode of the TV series ‘The Revolution of Our Love’.

Skynet Action’s distribution company have issued an apology on social media but Shen said it had come too late as he had already had to change his number.

The distribution company said the dialogue had been changed on the episode to prevent future problems.