You have won!!!

You have won!!!! ©

By Michael Casey

You always delete junk emails, you always do but this time you didn’t, you don’t even know why, but it said you had WON £1000 of vouchers for B&Q or This&That or even for Whatis&Thingymabob. So against your better judgement or maybe you were just tired because of the pain from your arthritis or piles or whatever. So you started filling in the form.

It asked your name and address and so on, and then it asked a load of other rubbish. DO you want this do you want that? Are you this age or that, do you want to book your funeral or do you want to go on holiday, and please specify which of 4 possible destinations, assuming you weren’t heading for your grave, or was it just pre-booking it, as you love your family so much and you don’t want to leave them with the bill, because you are so considerate.

Then it sends you through a maze or slide of other offers and promotions, it even asks you for your mobile number, which you don’t know because you never ring yourself. You only have a phone so you can keep in touch with your daughters when they go out singing in the dark, or after dark. Finally you work out what your number is and then against your better judgement you put it in.

Then there’s more, more invasive questions, you half expect rubber gloves and a command to bend over to come from the online form. Then finally the end, and you see in the corner, so small that you need a magnifying glass that you have to pay them 4 quid a month subscription to “win” prizes. So really it’s a con, and it’s a misrepresentation, you have not won anything. They are just data mining you, and on top of it all they are charging you a monthly fee for the privilege.

They you go back to your email and you are supposed to make one final click, why, perhaps to accept them stealing the monthly fee from you. So you don’t do the final click. So you send them an angry reply, “leave me alone and never email me again.”

So you have saved yourself from their rubbish and them helping themselves to your money. Do they take it from your phone balance? Then you see right at the unsubscribe link, so you click on that too, for good measure.  And what does that say? It says you have unsubscribed, but do you want a chance to enter a competition to win some more stuff, and it offers two chances.

Sounds like offering life insurance at a funeral, just as tacky, so please leave me alone, you know who you are.