German tears hair out over hairdresser's phone

Berlin: Police helped a German man track down a nuisance caller to discover that his tormentor for two years was a faulty card payment system in a hairdresser's shop.

The 58-year-old man in Frankfurt did not recognise the Hamburg number that kept ringing him and had it blocked.

After several months, he got tired of paying for the blocking service and the calls began again on working days.

Police traced the number to a Hamburg hairdresser whose payment system dialled the man whenever it accepted a card.

Staff were oblivious to the problem, which is being fixed. "When he picked it up he got no answer, and there was no response when he called back either," said Frankfurt police spokesman Manfred Fuellhardt on Tuesday.