This Could Only Happen To Chad Ochocinco

A portion of proceeds from the official, limited edition cereal of the Bengals wide receiver goes to Feed The Children organization. According to their website, the correct number is 1-888-HELP-FTC.

Robert Bailey, president of Rosenhaus Sports, which represents Ochocinco, said the charity gave the supplier the wrong number.

“Feed the Children inadvertently provided the producers of the cereal box with an ‘800’ number instead of the correct number with an ‘888’ exchange,'' he said in a statement. "We greatly regret the mistake and the trouble it has caused, but Chad himself was in no way involved in this error.''

Bailey said Ochocinco expects the correct number will appear on new cereal boxes.

A woman who answered the phone at Feed the Children referred calls to the organization’s main office in Oklahoma.

Kroger workers began pulling the boxes of Ochocincos from shelves Thursday morning and were trying to reach the supplier, PLB Sports of Pittsburgh.

“Of course, we don’t want the message to get lost. The idea was to support the children,” said James Avant, an assistant advertising manager and a company spokesman. “(But) with that mistake, the wrong number, it’s just in the best interests to pull the boxes.”

Tara Sand of Reading said her family made the discovery Wednesday night when her sister-in-law called the number on speaker phone. The family was interested in perhaps donating to the children’s charity.

“That’s when we heard the lovely sex line that was on there,” Sand, 28, said sarcastically Thursday. “Needless to say, I thought she had dialed the wrong number. We quickly turned it off because our daughter, Lexi, who is 9, was looking at us with lots of questions on her face.”

Sand said her husband redialed the number to make sure – and came up with the sex line again. So she called her mother – and her mother said her cereal box also listed the same wrong number. “We were quite astonished,” Sand said.

She hopes the incident won’t negatively reflect on the Cincinnati Bengals, or Ochocinco.

“The thing that is most disappointing about this is nobody wants bad press,” she said. “(Ochocinco) may be a celebrity, but he’s obviously endorsing Feed the Children. I imagine he would have no idea this happened. It looks bad. It looks bad for the Bengals. It looks bad for Chad. It looks bad for Feed the Children. People calling to make a donation getting a sex line, that’s not the greatest thing in the world.”

The low fat, honey nut, toasted oat cereal -- called Ochocincos -- went on sale earlier this month at the Newport Kroger store.

The store manager at the Newport Kroger store was horrified when an Enquirer reporter notified him of the mix-up Thursday morning.

“What! Are you kidding?” responded manager Eric Harmon. “We have a huge display of that.