A Tax On Stupidity

Terence Eden — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 13:55:29 +0000

Ever seen one of these scratch cards? They often seem to fall out of magazines or inserted into junk mail.

A scratchcard

I usually just throw them straight into the recycling bin. But, like the fool I am, I thought "Nothing ventured, nothing gained". I could win some serious cash here...

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

If you can't read the small print, it says...

Calls cost £1.50/min from a BT landline & will last no longer than 6 mins.

Not having a land-line, I went for the mobile option

Sent texts charged at operator's normal rate, you'll receive 6 texts at £1.50 each

So, to try and claim your prize will cost £9.00 - assuming your texts are free. Of course, it's not until you've spent the money that you find what your prize it. Can you guess at what I "won"? That's right! The grand prize of £10.

Still, a profit of a quid for not doing much. Could be worse. But wait! What's this?

SAE

In order to claim, I need to post the ticket off and include a first class stamp. Even if I sent it off 2nd class, that would cost me 56p.

So now it costs me £9.56 to get £1. Hmmm.... still, I can enjoy getting a crisp tenner through the post. Maybe even a cheque or postal order. What larks.

But, no. After a few weeks of patiently waiting by the letterbox, I received this letter from "Purely Creative".

The Letter

Well... There are a couple of issues with this letter. Firstly there's no place to enter my banking details! Secondly, there's another cost.

Best case scenario, I spend an extra 25p on a second class stamp - my total expenditure is now £9.81. Giving me a profit of 19p.

Worse still, if for some reason I want a cheque or postal order sent to me it will cost me between 25p or £1.10. Either scenario pushes me into making a loss from this wretched scratch card.

I suspect at this point, most people give up. Is it worth the hassle of filling in a form and posting it in return for eleven pence? Probably not. I'm half tempted to send it off just to get something out of them - but I'll probably end up on endless junk mail lists.

I knew there was a reason I binned these scratch cards in the past.

lottery – Terence Eden’s Blog

A Tax On Stupidity