red no?nonsense...

So Patrick at work told me today about this crazy rumour floating about that if you receive a call and if the no appears in red and you answer the call, you end up dead!!

Seriously!! Immediately i had flashbacks to The Ring and Samora crawling outta the TV. Brrr

Anyway, Don't panic, it's a hoax in my humble opinion. The CCK and Safaricom have confirmed it's a hoax; you cannot die from receiving a phone call; it's just not technically possible. The superstitious idiot in me also screams to not tempt fate.

However Kenya is not the fist this calling hoax has happened to. Variants of the so-called "death call" warning first appeared on April 13, 2007 (Friday the 13th) in Pakistan, where they caused widespread panic and inspired a slew of ancillary rumors, such as the claim that the phone calls, if listened to, could also cause impotence in men and pregnancy in women. Pakistanis were heard trading secondhand stories of actual deaths that had occurred, some claiming they were the handiwork of ancestral spirits enraged by the construction of a cell phone tower over a graveyard.

Government officials and mobile phone providers issued statements challenging the truth of the rumors in an effort to quell the panic, but, just as they began to subside in Pakistan, similar emails began to spread throughout India, the Middle East, and Africa.


In July 2004 a simpler version of this rumor caused a minor outbreak of panic in Nigeria. An example of the forwarded text message published on South Africa's Independent Online news website read as follows:

Beware! You'll die if you take a call from any of these phone numbers: 0802Â 311Â 1999 or 0802Â 222Â 5999.

"This is an absolute hoax and should be treated as such," said a representative of Nigeria's largest cellular provider at the time, VMobile, in a statement to the press.

So see, it has happened all over the world and those rumours you are hearing about Kimbos uncle's brother's cousin's father got it and died in Eldoret are just disturbing.

Be smart, Be safe and stop believing everything you read.

All comments expressed are of the writer and should not be treated as gospel, seek further expert advice if you want to test the Red caller.