Police in the northern German city of Lübeck cautioned citizens to only call the 110 emergency hotline if they really felt under threat after a local woman rang them up to complain about her hairdresser.

"On Wednesday evening," the police wrote on their Facebook page, "an upset woman called the police emergency line ... She told us that she was sitting in a hair salon in the center of Lübeck and having 'enormous problems.'"

It turned out that she had tried to have her hair dyed three times, but each time the color was completely unsatisfactory and she didn't know whom to turn to for help. The police said they warned that if they got a similar call from her again, she could face charges for misuse of the emergency line.

Police across Germany log thousands of cases of misusing the 110 hotline every year. Recently, a man in Chemnitz called the number to report that his ex-girlfriend wouldn't give his t-shirt back. In Tübingen, two teenagers were fined for calling for an ambulance "as a joke." Authorities have also said accidentally "pocket dialing" emergency services is a major problem.

Officers have stressed that, as each call is treated extremely seriously, misuse of the emergency line could lead to police reacting too late to a serious crime, should they be tied up by a fraud or an accident.

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