Florida Dad Gets More Than 15,000 Birthday Messages After Sons Pull Billboard Stunt

Apr 26, 2019 by apost team

Before he turned 62, Chris Ferry received a rather unusual and public birthday gift. His sons spent $2,000 on a billboard near Atlantic City, New Jersey, (Ferry's state-of-residence) and posted a message for their father that ended up inundating his cellphone with over 15,000 calls and texts. Each one represented well-wishes from residents of every state, as well as countries all across the globe.

“Luxembourg, Nepal, Kenya, Philippines,” Ferry said, in an interview with Inside Edition. “That little island in the middle of the Indian Ocean, they tried calling me.”

So how were Ferry’s sons, Chris and Mike, able to direct so much activity to their father’s personal cellphone? As it turns out, the whole ordeal began because of the exact text that Ferry’s sons chose for their billboard-sized birthday card.

The message read “Wish My Dad Happy Birthday - Love, Your Sons,” and included Ferry’s phone number. For Chris and Mike, the idea originated in an innocent enough prank they used to play on their father, at restaurants, when they were both children.

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“They would always tell the waiter [or] waitress it’s my birthday, even though it wasn’t,” Ferry told CBS.

So since his sons currently reside in Florida and were unable to join their father on his big day, Chris and Mike rented the billboard and tried to loop others in on birthday wishes for Ferry.

Even Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest of ABC’s “Live With Kelly and Ryan” tried to join in on the birthday fun, calling Ferry’s phone, on air. However, he missed that particular call, and the two hosts were prevented from leaving a message due to his mailbox already being full, at that point.

By now, Ferry has been forced to stop answering most of his calls and has actually changed his voicemail message, which now begins, “Thank you for calling to wish me a Happy Birthday. I really very much appreciate it … ”

"It was fun until this morning. Then I wanted no more," he told CBS.

While Ferry can still see the humor in the prank, his son, Chris, did admit to not knowing how he and his brother were going to top the gift, next year.

“Maybe try to get a bigger billboard?” he said.

Do you have your own story about a particularly over-the-top birthday gift or well-wishes that were directed your way? Let us know in the comments down below and pass this along to your friends and family to put a smile on their faces today!