Man gets revenge on Gumtree seller by texting him entire works of Shakespeare

Plays will buzz through in 29,305 chunks

Shakespearing? Completeworksing? The pointless but satisfying stunt is sure to become a thing (Getty)

If you're stupid enough to pay for something over Gumtree by direct bank transfer, your sources of recourse when you get ripped off are limited.

24-year-old Edd Joseph realised that his chances of getting the £80 back for the PS3 games and console he bought from the rogue seller were slim to none, so turned to William Shakespeare in a bid for revenge.

The Bristolian discovered he could copy the text for every one of the Bard's plays from a browser and paste them into an SMS, before sending it to the Gumtree advertiser's contact number.

The victim can only receive texts in 160 character chunks however, meaning Shakespeare's 37 works will come through in 29,305 parts (with a buzz for each one).

The stunt comes at no cost to Joseph, who has a phone contract that allows him unlimited free texts.

"My first thought was that I could try and pretend I had found out where he lived but it was all a bit of a cliche and it wasn't going to worry him really," he told the Bristol Post.

"Then it just occurred to me you can copy and paste things from the internet and into a text message.

"It got me thinking, 'what can I sent to him' which turned to 'what is a really long book', which ended with me sending him Macbeth."

While ingenious, the stunt does nothing for the hole in his pocket, though something tells me a high street video games retailer will soon enter to save the day.