Ask Lemmy

In the United States the same concept has sloshed around a bit; (xxx)555-01xx is the official range of "reserved for fiction, guaranteed not to connect" numbers; most people think it's all of 555. It isn't, there was a directory assistance service on 555-1212 until 2020. In the first Ghostbusters film their phone number is given as 555-2368. I've seen a number of fictional programs give a number as 555-5555. If they ever were reserved, they're not now. The 555 exchange is explicitly NOT reserved in the toll-free area codes, which is how The Last Of Us accidentally included the number of a sex chat line. "I thought 555 numbers weren't real." No it's more nuanced than that.

Then there's 867-5309, made famous by the band Tommy Tutone. They wrote a song about finding a girl's name and number written on a men's room wall and used a valid phone number. In fact, because no area code is given it's several hundred valid phone numbers. Across the United States in the early 1980's a few hundred random people started getting prank phone calls asking for "Jenny". The number remains valid and several are still in use and even specially requested but I don't think they'll issue it sequentially anymore.