Sara, I think you mean you graduated high school before 1994 (meaning you are 46 years old or older now). The person who explained the phone number’s origin said his uncle created the voice message “around” 1995, which is an estimate. The USA Today article mentions December 1994 and others have mentioned 1993. It is possible it was up and running in 1993. There are other reports that link to this person’s explanation, and it appears to be the truth.

No you didn’t

Buried in the squall of the YouTube thread is the most reasonable and informed response to all this. A slickly-produced YT video can get over a million views and make its creators a bunch of money when really, there was nothing here to talk about:

“Sam Lutfi
I can explain to you exactly what this was all about. Around 1995 my uncle who is Lebanese(not Indian) worked/volunteer for the PGA. At that time members of the PGA decided to pay for a hot line where you could call and receive golf tips from around a hundred PGA members that were attending the Tommy Armour Teaching and Coaching and Summit in New Orleans that year. The line was active but for about a week until the board received a massive bill for all the toll free calls made that week. No one wanted to pay the bill and it remained in dispute for years. Now the message you hear is my uncle testing the line when it was initially set up. At the time you had to record numerous prompts so you can direct the callers what numbers to press. Upon filling the dispute, the phone company removed all the prompts and deactivated the numbers you can press and it defaulted to his initial test recording. now the funny part. My Uncle originally lived in Canada, his credit and address was based in Canada and he was the one that volunteered to apply for the account. After the bill was disputed we realized that if you called the number on certain regions in Canada, you would hear him counting and if you didn’t hang up you’d hear a screech that was actually the original recording being rewound. The phone company on paper deemed the number out of service and paid no attention to the voicemail millions of people heard. Prior to the summit the PGA board talked numerous outlets in both Canada and the states to print the number for free as an upcoming promotion and that’s why the number was posted in many papers and even on some billboards. in 1996 people caught on about this and rumors began to spread. Many college newspapers printed the number in ominous looking adverts as pranks and it went on for several years until the number was sold to a bulk dialer that was previously a bulk 976 erotic for pay number. My Uncles name was Basem, there was nothing ominous about the number, it was an ongoing topic in our family for years and then forgotten about until someone sent me the link to this.”