"Win a million" scratch cards in the Sunday rags

[diddyman]

You know the ones?

Your prize is worth "substantially more" than the cost of the call you have to make to claim your prize.

Has anyone EVER bothered to phone and claim a prize? And if so, what do you get?

[KITT]

My parents did once and won a "trip to France". This basically meant they won 5 foot passenger tickets on a Dover-Calais ferry with the option to upgrade so they could take a car for £50.

Total con IMHO.

[diddyman]

Yes, I suspect that no one ever wins the £250,000 but you all get the cheapest crappiest option available.

[milfordkong]

I've often wondered about these too, surely they HAVE to have the prizes available and must give them out to someone as otherwise it would be totally illegal to advertise the opportunity to win said prize would it not?

Andy

[diddyman]

Well, I scratched the card in this weekend's paper and I am entitled to not one but two prizes. (I'm SO excited.)

Shall I waste £7.50 on the call to see what I win? Or shall I just bin it?

[chrisgr31]

My suspicion is that most prizes are for holiday vouchers, but the vouchers come with such conditions that you'd never manage to spend them!

[anonymous-user]

diddyman said:

Yes, I suspect that no one ever wins the £250,000 but you all get the cheapest crappiest option available.

alot of these scams share prizes so there is just one £250K prize advertised in hundreds of competitions. Someone will eventually win the £250K if they scratch a winning ticket and take a chance by calling up to claim it, then be told they are 1/4 million better off.

odds of winning?: a third the square root of bugger all

[alexkp]

The papers are actually able to take out insurance policies against anyone winning their competitions.

Incredible isn't it?

[mcflurry]

diddyman said:

Well, I scratched the card in this weekend's paper and I am entitled to not one but two prizes. (I'm SO excited.) Shall I waste £7.50 on the call to see what I win? Or shall I just bin it?

Call it from a work phone

[Pierscoe1]

did this already.. had loads of these cards while at uni, and abused SU-staff facilities to call up from their phone

won a whole load of "1 foot-passenger ticket to calais, must be used between 1am and 1:15am tomorrow" type things, and a crappy £20 hifi..

needless to say, never bothered actually collecting any of them...