What's the World's Most Expensive Phone Number?

What's the most you'd pay for your phone number? If you're like most of us it's probably nothing, but what if someone offered you a number of your choice, a number with some sentimental value? Would you be willing to negotiate?

That was the idea behind a charity auction in Qatar last May. The auction was organized by national telco Qtel, and although it may sound funny to some of us, it's not the first time the premium telecommunications company hosted such an auction, and it won't be the last. All revenue's from these auctions have been, and will continue to be donated to charities. And the past has shown that many are willing to be very charitable - with the incentive of drawing their lucky number.

So, who was the top bidder? and what was the number? Well, I'm not going to tell you who bought it but if you want to call up and ask, be my guest. Personally, I don't dare to. The winning number was 666-6666 and it went for 10,000,000 Qatari riyals - the equivalent of 2.75 million U.S. dollars. (yes, I left out the area code - don't really call it)

This surpassed the old record set by Sichuan Airlines when they doled out 270,000 GB Pounds (little over half a mil, USD) for 888-8888. The Cantonese word for eight sounds a lot like the word for rich. And, I guess they wanted to flaunt it. The funny thing is, the outlandish purchase backfired when they reported getting an inordinate number of "prank" phone calls from young children sheepishly playing with mommy and daddy's phone.

My intuition tells me that the record-setting devilish number above will experience similar pitfalls.

But the sweet 6's don't always translate into satan's home phone. 666 is viewed as holy in Judaism because it represents the six directions; up, down, north, south, east, west. And, if you're a numerologist, you might know that learning the pleasure of accepting and managing responsibility is the major lesson of the lifepath 6.