A police force is urging the public to use their emergency line properly after receiving a call made by a man upset by a row with a supermarket staffer over pumpkins.
West Yorkshire Police posted a recording on Twitter in which a man can be heard complaining to a call handler about a disagreement over whether pumpkins were included with a "chucky-like doll" he purchased.
"Please don't ring 999 if you're in dispute with your local supermarket about pumpkins," the force tweeted.
"A call like this could prevent us from dealing with a genuine life or death emergency. Make the right call. #Not999 @WYP_Contact "
The recording of the call starts off with the caller saying: "I've just been in Morrisons and I've been sold a clown... whatever it is."
"She gave us a pumpkin and now she's taken it back off us."
"We bought this believing we were going to get four pumpkins with it."
The caller went on to explain: "We want all four, they're in a dish, there's nothing stating pumpkins sold separately".
The call handler interrupts the man to say: "Caller I'm going to interrupt you for a second. You've rung 999, which is for life or death emergencies... about pumpkins.
"Okay it's not a life-or-death emergency."
The call, which goes on for one and a half minutes, comes as the latest example released by officers of the 999 line being misused.
Earlier this year West Yorkshire police shared a recording of a call from a who phoned 999 as she tried to get help in receiving a spider from her house.
The police force stated they receive "120 calls a day to our 999 line that are not a life or death emergency."
Lat year Essex Police criticised callers who abused the service, explaining that dealing with time-wasting calls results in delays in responding to people in need of real help.
A few of the non-emergency requests the force had heard from in the past six months included a man who called to complain about being kicked out of a pub.
Another caller was a driver on the M11 who dialed 999 to ask for a police escort because he was late home for dinner.
Control room head Chief Inspector Ian Gennery said the vast majority of calls received were from people facing a genuine emergency.
His team will never disconnect a call without offering advice, he said.
But, he said there had also been a worrying amount of calls that were not emergencies. In light of this, he asked people to consider if their situation warranted an urgent police response.
“Do we really need to be directing officers and resources away from a domestic incident or a serious collision to come and help you?” he said.
“If it doesn’t, there are a lot of other methods you can use, and there are lots of resources to look at on our website. You can use the 101 system to speak to someone over the phone, the live chat function on our website, or submit an online report.”
He reiterated that anyone in need of urgent police assistance should call 999.
