The search turned up plenty of low-budget kidnappers, but I wanted something a little more upscale.
The most popular and credible (read: most accented letters) option seemed to be Ultíme Réalité, a French company (so you know it’s legit) which offers a chance to “feel the rush, the thrill and the fear of a real kidnapping; feel and understand the psychological shock of victims; and grow the reality of kidnapping as you wish by integrating into a larger-than-life scenario.”
After sending them a check (or wiring them money through a Swiss account while hiding in an abandoned missile silo), they’ll give you a few days to forget that you just paid someone to kidnap you, and they’ll turn up when you least expect–probably while you’re watching CSI–with enough ropes, gags, and blindfolds to make this kidnapping truly Facebook Album-worthy.
Here’s the genius behind their business model: expanding horizontally across the WTF services sector. Since a mock kidnapping experience is really just a gateway pseudo-crime, Ultíme Réalité offer three additional adventures for those who refuse to believe that Jason Statham is not an actor: the ‘Manhunt’ (becoming predator or prey in a cat-and-mouse game), the ‘Go-Fast Adventure’ (drug-running on a speedboat down the Seine), and ‘Extreme’ (something involving waking up in a morgue on an autopsy table).
Oh, by the way, they’re hiring. 