used to win regularly on local radio 15 to 20 years ago. it was a competition that ran the same time every day each week, the caller of the day had to answer 5 questions in the quickest time, ’60 second dash’ or something like that, quickest time that week won.
obviously everyone would ring in and hog the phone lines during the song before the competition started, but i worked out that to stop that happening, they’d wipe the phone lines once theyd told people to ring in, to give people a fair chance.
it was during the years where if you rang someone and it was engaged you could press 5 and theyd ring you back automatically when the call finished. sneaky sneaky, id ring during the previous record, get the engaged tone, press 5 and sit back and wait. sure enough, when they wiped the phones mine would start ringing, id pick it up and be on one of the lines.
didnt get picked every day, but i had a good success rate. even more sneakily, if i got a good score early in the week id still get on for the rest of the week and pretend to be someone else, putting on a different voice and getting a crap score to make sure mine was still fastest of the week.
won a variety of prizes, all expenses paid trip to epsom derby with poncey meal, helicopter trips, VHS recorders, that sort of thing.
stopped doing it as i felt guilty in the end……
