Is there anyone in the English-speaking world who has never received a breezy letter from the splendidly named Tom Champagne, informing them - if memory serves - that they have successfully completed two of the three steps needed to win rich pickings from the Reader's Digest?
Unfortunately, step one was having a letterbox, step two opening good old Tom's letter. That still left somewhat long odds against collecting one of the wonderful cash-or-kind prizes on offer.
This is not to say that no one ever won. Happy faces of past winners were always included in the accompanying bumf. But the real purpose of Tom's cheery approach was to twist your arm on this or that book or other item Reader's Digest was trying to flog. You could still enter the competition without making a purchase, but these entries were to be made in distinctive No envelopes setting you apart as someone with the audacity to turn down self-evidently desirable goods and still expect a windfall.
Needless to say, I fell for it time and again when younger and sillier, ending up with all manner of unwanted books without the least hint of a prize. Oh, there may have been the odd consolation, cheapo trinkets of some sort designed to reassure you that there really were winners. But my status as a non-millionaire was never threatened.
Winners, proper winners, there must undoubtedly be. Tom's job was - is? - simply to make it look as if you had a real chance of becoming one, too.
Much the same approach is taken by the good folk who run Fast Cash from Seaham, Co Durham whose crust is made by persuading punters that they can collect up to £10,000 from scratch cards.
I cannot remember which particular magazine mine fell out of while I was recently back in the UK, except that it will have belonged to Nathalie, the daughter who has just made me a grandfather.
"Match three symbols and you have won a cash prize" reads each of four detachable vouchers. Matching three other symbols brings you one of a number of items that could, among other things also including monetary awards, be a £5,000 50in Plasma TV set, a DVD player.....or a "watch set". In an idle moment and purely, you'll understand, in the interests of investigative journalism, I entered.
The catch? Finding matching symbols seems simple enough. I wouldn't be surprised if every strip of four vouchers included at least one "winner". But then you have to dial up a rip-off line, or send a series of text messages, to claim your prize.
The recorded information for telephone callers goes on inanely for six minutes. Each minute costs £1.50 "plus network extras". The "prize number" on each voucher determines whether your prize is £10,000 or various smaller amounts descending to £10.
The speaker, an impossibly upbeat female, takes callers laboriously through each of these amounts, with a great deal of repetition to make sure no one misses theirs (and drag out the call). To ensure that interest is maintained, she goes up as well as down the scale of awards, rather than announcing them in descending order.
But guess which one comes last. The tenner. And now, for once, the pace increases. A male voice reads out the essential claim number. He does so clearly enough, but quickly. And for once there is no repeat of the information. With the least distraction, you miss part of the number.
You can, of course, start again. But you've already spent £9 plus those "network extras" for a £10 prize, AND you still need to buy three first class stamps, one to post your claim and two to enclose "for return postage of your prize confirmation".
A first class stamp costs 36p. Three therefore set you back £1.08. That gives you a net loss of 8p before your "network extras", and even that assumes you heard the claim number correctly (though the really clever prize winner probably has a phone bill formula that enables him to make the call without incurring extras AND sends the claim by second class post at 27p, thereby ensuring a profit of 1p on the exercise). Look after the pennies, my mother used to say, and....
As with the Reader's Digest competitions, there is nothing illegal going on here. Fast Cash is even able to declare that more than £50,000 has already been won. But I wonder how much it cost the winners to collect it....
And in a spirit of paternal benevolence, I have nominated Nathalie to receive my prize. If there is one.
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