Close enough to on-topic to count, I think
I'm not whether this is more "abusing freebies" or "abusing the elderly to get freebies". Moreover, I think I come out of it looking like an utter bastard. Still...

Among the furniture at my house is a couple of large leather armchairs, a mahogany dining suite, a walnut bedroon suite, a piano, and a few other things. I got them all completely free.

How?

Well, I was fairly brazen in making it clear to sundry silver-haired relatives exactly what, when they died, became decrepit, or went into kennels, I would like to inherit.

What's slightly worrying is that, at the time I made these demands, I can have been no more than about 8 years old.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 9:07, Reply)

Too many to count
I started volunteering in clubs in high school because it would (a) get me out of class and (b) sometimes have free food. Having a cover as a journalist can get you in many doors. When I was a student journalist I elbowed my way into many formal functions where free wine was served. One time I even met the lieutenant governor. She sent her bodyguards after me, but it turned out she had ordered them to get my phone number.

Probably my largest coup was when I convinced FIFA I was covering the 2003 U19 Women's Football world championship for a small weekly music newspaper I wrote for (who didn't care about sports). They gave me a free pass I could use to get onto the pitch at any of the games.

The best part of the tournament was after the Canada/Japan game. I went into the press room to interview the Canadian players, and the door to the Japanese girls' locker room was open. One particularly careless player was standing too close to the door and before my eyes she stripped off her jersey, baring her back to me. Then somebody closed the door, but not before I'll take that image to my grave.

And yes, it's legal in Canada down to age 16.
(racetraitor has an alibi for, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 7:58, 2 replies)

F*ck me! I've got a 'When I Was At Uni' story
It was the final year and graduate recruitment fair at St. Idiot's and All Fools College, and once again an enormous, faceless company (let's call them MonkeyGrunt SlaveCorp) had set up a stand to entice eager young graduates to sign up to a life of drab corporate carrot-chasing.

There was lots of free booze, and of course we availed ourselves liberally of it until standing up and uttering coherent speech became more of a dream than a possibility.

Now, of course, (a) sausage factories like MonkeyGrunt SlaveCorp have been doing these events since the reign of King Ethelfroth the Ugly, and (b) there is nothing remotely original, interesting or unexpected about students getting pissed, especially when the booze is free.

So when MonkeyGrunt SlaveCorp subsequently announced that 'We will no longer be recruiting at St. Idiot's and All Fools College because of the drunken behaviour of its students', we really did feel a glowing sense of achievement.
(><(((">, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 7:31, 2 replies)

Being a housebuilder
I get bricks sent in the post to me.

That's right, bricks.
If anybody's knows a window they want stoving-in, I'm your man.

Also, we occasionally get free pens engraved with our business name, unsolicited. Thrilling. Oh, and once, some free teabags from A*da. They do some line or other in 'Builder's Tea' and thought we needed some.
( mr_wicksy is.... old., Fri 9 Nov 2007, 7:30, 2 replies)

Technical Seminars
A certain large educational supplier likes to take Network Managers and IT Department Heads to what they call 'technical seminars'. They're basically glorified sales pitches, usually in some hotel or conference centre.

Now what happens when you force most 'normal' IT people to sit in a room listening to ideas that most of them either thought up themselves or have already discounted as fads and wastes of money...

...that's right, they turn to drink. Now, bearing in mind that roughly half the room are also teachers... you can see where this is going.

The 1st year I went, the sales 'team' was handed a bar bill of £6,000. Not bad considering there was only 40 of us there. Highlights included someone stealing all the bulbs out of the projectors in an effort to stop the afternoon 'session' and a Headteacher being caught balls-deep in one of the sales girls.
Scored a freebie copy of Office Developer and enough mousemats to use as coasters in the bar..

Next year was slightly different - obviously having not learned from last time, it was now a two day event. Now between my colleague and myself, we were looking at ordering the best part of £40ks worth of equipment and software each for our establishments. As a result, we were handed anything we wanted as a sweetner - cue a free copy of Exchange for me and enough wine to ensure that I didn't see daylight until 1pm on the second day. My roomate however was nowhere to be seen. He was too busy arranging his own 'volume discount' with the delightfully busty but alarmingly dense head of sales.

Aparently she loved the length (enough for a 10% discount).

They didn't run the seminars the next year - just sent a DVD instead.
( HSDriver was probably still at work on, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 6:41, Reply)

The best thing ever
was when i realised that place on the microsoft website where you could tick some boxes and be sent free trials of pretty much anything, I used to get a massive box of them almost monthly, and keep the CD's pointlessly for looking pretty, and also keep the DVD cases. Massive waste. I don't know if you can still do it, but i am too lazy to check. This was 3 or 4 years ago.
(woo who?, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 5:50, Reply)

When I was on dialup
I was using an ISP that was a Pipex reseller. I found their 0800 access number inside the software on a trial disk. I abused it. Lots. Then they disconnected the number.

THRILLING CONTRIBUTION!
( Dave Trouser ; the people's choice - 75% agree, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 4:34, Reply)

free stuff...
Nicked a bunch of food when I was in the army. I like army food.

grabbed 4 beers at a conference last month. no one was standing there with the bottle opener so they all went straight into my bag.
(armednuclearterrorist, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 3:00, Reply)

free matches
A couple of years ago, as a fresh faced fresher, I was beginning to enjoy the freedom of moving from the parents home. I could go out, drink, and not only were indoor fires allowed, they were met with minimal complaints from flat mates.

Only problem was I didn't have many matches. Then we went on a night out. Having a quiet pitcher in the local spoons, I notice then free matches by the bar. It must be some mistake, fire for free. Under the guise of ordering more drinks, I quickly stuff box after box of matches in my back pocket. I emptied the bar's supply of free matches, and immobilized myself. So full were the pockets on my jeans that I actually agreed to go home early with a couple of mates.

Finally get back to the flat and count my matches, I got more then 60 boxes. Each box had about 20 matches in. I'm no mathematician, but that is a shit load of matches.

To celebrate, i set 5 boxes alight at once, then set a pizza box on fire.


Not remarkable, not expensive, but taking advantage of the good people at 'spoons. Also led to the indoor campfire, the fire under door prank and many other exploits of youth.

Sad thing, last time i was in spoons i grabbed 10 boxes.

Come to think of it, I accidentally shoplifted a box of matches from tesco.(on my honour, I didn’t mean to) I guess I don't pay for matches.


If any ones stupid and wondering, it was approximately 1200 matches, and yes, they were all gone by the end of the year.
(Mong goose, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 1:51, 1 reply)

Freebies, Little Girl
.
I once saw this outside a school. A balding man was trying to get a girl to come onto his car by offering her freebies.

"If you get in the car, I'll give you a fiver"

"Err - no" says little girl.

"A fiver and a bag of sweets" says baldy

"Err - no" says little girl

"Last offer. A fiver, bag of sweets and I'll take you to see some puppies" says Baldy

"Look Dad" says little girl "I've told you, I'm not getting into a fucking Skoda!"

Ba-bum-tish


Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 1:26, 2 replies)

abusing freebees
My mate once routinely kicked, punched and intimidated some african bees he got for nuffink off a man in the pub.
Oh,abusing freebies?
fuck it,.............. true story anyway
Length: just past the shoulders.
(L.T. Smash Humungous fail since, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 1:18, Reply)

Media freebie at a big London gallery.
The boss didn't recognise the PR company hosting it, so gave the invites to the trainee reporters. Turns out the agency in question represented MPs, dignitaries and suchlike, and really didn't intend to invite anyone from our tinpot little publication in the first place.

Drunk doesn't even begin to describe it. Long story short, I knock a six-foot-tall flower vase over Virginia Bottomley. My colleague then gets into a fist fight with the Champagne waiter and ends up flailing into the string quartet's cello player. Judging this a wizard way to meet women, he starts launching himself hands-first at every other female in the room.

Our hosts soon decide it's time for him to leave -- something he refuses to do until he finds where I've disappeared to. This stalemate is eventually broken when the boss of the PR firm chances upon me in the car park, giving a knee-trembler to one of the junior executives.

Even after an official apology, we were never asked back.
( 0% Interest Expand Reply Retweet Favorite More, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 1:17, 2 replies)

Health care problems
about 5 years ago when i was about 14 (you do the maths to calculate my age!) i used to love these freebie websites where one could order free shit.
(samples of tea bags, free dvd about double glazing etc...) until one day i came acrosss the holy grail
free parker pen.
sound my 14 year old mind thought.
so i filled the form in
and then it asked about my buisness details.
of course at this stage i really wanted my parker pen and wasnt going to settle for no.
so i filled out my buisness details.
as the nhs.
and i forget about my parker pen.
until 3 months later i get a package to "Dr MD-mnmlst" its my bloody parker pen with the nhs logo on it!
only it turns out it wasnt free at all.. damn pen got charged to the buisness details.
Nhs got charged about £4 so a 14 year old could have a pen that he lost 2 days later.
I dont know about length but that makes me sound like a wanker.
(MD-Mnmlst, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 1:12, 2 replies)

Online freebies
Most sites which send out free samples of whatever product they're pushing don't seem to like letting you fill in their forms twice.

The way round it? Change the name and the postcode.

Despite having 3 cats, a certain cat food manufacturer must think I have an entire colony of the buggers, and saw fit to remind me after a year that 'Tiddles IV' and 'Mr Kitt E. Catt' were coming up to their first birthday...

I'm also running out of names. I'm certain the postman thinks I'm as mad as a bag of cats - by the names on the letters he delivers, all of the characters from Spaced and half the cast of Coronation Street live in my spare room.
( Biscuitzs -.. . -- ----- ...- -.- --. -.-, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 0:58, Reply)

Free sex...
...not that I have paid for it - but lonely patients who have called the ambulance often offer free sex even to unattractive and balding paramedics such as myself.
I know it's just the uniform, but it doesn't do the mid-life ego any harm!!

edit: It's not always good though, several colleagues have ended up getting harassed and even stalked by female patients.
Me? I got stalked by a gay schizophrenic.
(emadex thinks the world will end on, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 0:51, Reply)

Free concerts...
...local concerts and sports events have to pay to have a paramedic on stand-by. So I get paid double time to watch my beloved local basket ball and baseball teams play (I would otherwise pay top dollar to go see them).
Same with concerts, although the biggest names we get where I live are stuff like UB40 or Chris Isaak.
(emadex thinks the world will end on, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 0:47, Reply)

cv joints
i used to own a garage, and the rep for a very large org who made cv joints, invited us to a manchester hotel for some trade show or summat.
it was an evening do and after a chat from some poncy uk sales manager, it was free food and a few free beers.
come midnight and the bosses were pissed and ready for bed. so off they went. leaving us lot of hairy arsed garage monkeys with the uk managers room number! we drank the bar dry and put it all on his tab. i was ill for 3 days.
few weeks later we heard he nearly got sacked!!!
(brussellsprout Im a fucking genius. official., Fri 9 Nov 2007, 0:40, Reply)

Paintballing
.
As a contractor, we normally don't get invited on any of the fun stuf companies lay on for the permies but I did get invited onto a paintbaling Team-Team building excercise.

Now who come up with that idea to build team spirit? Paintballing. Shoot your cow-orker? That'll make friends and infulence people.

So we piles off the coach in deepest Bedfordshire, got suited and booted and given our weapons and shown how to use them and a mass reaction took place. 40 people had the same thought at the same time and acted on it.

We all turned round and shot the boss.

We were back on the coach ten minutes later.


Worth it though.

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 0:26, Reply)

More stealing than freebies...
but, i have kind of made it my mission to "aquire" as much tat from bars, clubs, parties etc. as i can, to decorate my prison like room at uni. I have so far obtained:- numerous pint glasses, a 3foot inflatable shark, an england flag, enough beermats/postcards to cover most of a wall, posters, a giant inflatable guinness pint, shot glasses, and there would be more if i wasn't to drunk to carry stuff home most of the time
(biggiantmat, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 0:16, Reply)

Food Trade Shows
I work in a petrol station, and a few months ago my boss took me with his family to a well known food distribution company's trade show up north somewhere (well I don't remember exactly where it was, but it was cold so I presumed!)

A co-worker and I spent a good 4 hours wandering around this giant hall place, picking up any consumable in eye-sight. Seriously, it was like legalised stealing in that place. Sometimes you had to talk to a rep for a couple of minutes and pretend to be interested so you could have a "sample" of each of their products.

All of the big food and drink companies were there, and didnt really care if you just filled a carrier bag with any crisps or chocolate on display. Stranger products included 2 tablets of herbal viagra, a giant tin of Heinz beans (think industrial sized!) and a 24 item case of Rustlers burgers!

We would wander over to the "promotion girls" by the door (giving them a wink on the way!) to get a new carrier bag, do some strategic wandering, and take armfuls of bags back to the car when you REALLY couldnt manage to fit another kitkat in!

Halfway through this, there was a big sit-down meal with a basket of free drinks in the middle (which I cleared into a new bag!). After filling my belly with some lovely hot food, I carried on ransacking the place. As we went on the last day, the companies didnt want to take the stuff home and were just giving you bagfuls of stuff!

Got a car full of bags (boot, rear seats, parcel shelf removed) and trundled back to the sunny South with my haul. I emptied everything into 2 giant boxes when I got home. Had a quick price up and found I had well over £400 worth of sweets, crisps, drinks, lighters, tshirts, cakes, biscuits and more!

I still have half a drawer full of stuff (I can't stand fizzy/sour sweets, so the"Toxic Waste" range of sweets are still there if anyone's interested!

Need to secure my tickets for next year now ;-)
(r2b2 has ear cataracts?!?, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 0:14, 2 replies)

Who says there's no such thing as a free lunch?
I used to work for a large department store on Oxford Street which had a staff canteen within the building. This canteen was fantastic; a section that offered dishes from a different country every day, a section that just did roasts, a sandwich bar, the list goes on... You simply picked up a tray when you went in, collected what you wanted and paid at the front.

Most people after they paid walked to the water fountain to get a drink before taking their seat at one of the many tables.

I soon realised that if I walked with my tray towards the cash registers but veered off towards the water fountain just before I was due to pay, then everyone assumed I had paid and then I could sit down to enjoy a free meal.

The thing is, the longer I did it the bolder I became. A competition, within myself, had been born to see how much food I could liberate in a single lunch hour. A typical lunch might include a bowl of steaming hot mulligatawny soup with two bread rolls, a full roast with extra yorkshire pudding, some spotted dick with loads of custard and a muffin.

Soon I even started taking sandwiches that would act as an afternoon snack. On civvy street this probably would have set me back about 15 quid but this canteen was subsidised so it would have been about 6-7 quid.

Now I did this every day, 5 days a week, for 2 years. 6 quid x 5 x 52 x 2 - you do the maths (and let me know what it was cos I can't be arsed working it out.)

Paid for me to take my then girlfriend to Goa for two weeks. It was there that during a shag I heard a click in my nose and all the seawater that had gone up there earlier that day came running out all over her face - yeah, that's it baby, you love it when I splash your face with my salty fluid. Mmmmmmmmm. But that's another story - which I have just told you. So you just got a bargain. A freebie, if you will.
(Creamy Discharge Freeze Motherstickers, this is a fuck up, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 0:14, 3 replies)

UCAS Convention competitions...
When I was in Year 11 (Aged 15/16ish), I was taken to a UCAS (University) convention in an old cattle market place.

After wandering around for twenty minutes, picking up any free pens or badges or other piece of crap we could find, we got bored. With an hour to spare, we happened upon a game!

A group of 5 or so of us had an hour to get as many prospectuses (sp?) as possible. This started off with a group of kids laughing at 2 carrier bags full, but ended with a giant mountain of a good 400 thick further-education booklets lying on the grassy area outside.

The next plan was to make something out of them all. This ended up in an accurate representation of Stonehenge made from colourful student guides, the circle being about 3-4 meters across! Got us some strange/impressed looks from the other kids there!

The only problem was how to get them all home. This was achieved by moving away from the "3rd Wonder of the Bath and West Showground" by about 20 metres and pretending we had nothing to do with it.

No repercussions at all! WOOP!
(r2b2 has ear cataracts?!?, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 0:03, 1 reply)

I loved my many holidays away from the country....
it was great, i'd leave the fat one with the two jags in charger.

thank you tax payers

T. Blair
(Squid83, Thu 8 Nov 2007, 23:55, Reply)

Argos abuse
Me mate would constantly abuse the returns policy of Argos to the point of extinction. He'd buy one fairly largish item (say a TV), then 11 months down the line take it back with all the packaging saying it was knackered and demanding either a refund or a "similar product". They'd always opt for the 2nd of the two, so he'd get a price-equivalent item to pick from their stock. As it was 11 months down the line they've normally got better and more upto date stock, so he'd succeeded in getting a "free upgrade". He did this for years until Argos finally changed their returns policy...he's well gutted.

PS Did a similar thing myself with Argos, bought a DVD Camcorder from there a few months back but had genuine problems. Finally was swopped over today for a new one; got given a Sony DVD106DC, a load of mini DVDRWs and 2 baby toys 'n' batteries as a straight swop (the Sony camcorder is about 10 times better than the original one I bought too plus for some unknown reason £50 cheaper than they were advertising it for, quids in :D)
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Thu 8 Nov 2007, 23:54, 1 reply)

Bindun?
In the IT world we have trade shows. Lots and lots of trade shows and the majority are ball-numbingly boring so I came up with a wee scam to make sure that I only attend if it's worth it.

I've mentioned before but, wherever I work I normally find myslef an appretince geek, a protege. Someone amongst my cow-orkers who shows that little extra spark that means that, one day, he'll be a proper BOFH. My PFY (Pimply Faced Youth).

Now with trade shows, I make sure that my PFY is scheduled to attend the first day and I'm rostered for day two. PFY has one instruction. Find the stalls with the best fruit, the best freebies, write down the company and stall and email it to me.

Not terribly funny but well worth copying.

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Thu 8 Nov 2007, 23:44, 1 reply)

Abuse of subway!
i like to get a sandwhich and then after eating my sandwhich fill the bag with coke from the drinks macnines and run away slurping my reward!
(bonzos, Thu 8 Nov 2007, 23:39, 4 replies)

I used to be a receptionist at a medical office.
About two weeks before Christmas, the other receptionist told me not to bother bringing in my lunch that week. I wasn't sure what she meant. . .and then, as the patients filtered in, I understood. I saw the light, and it was good.

Biscuits, whole cakes, cheeses, homemade buns, chocolates, bags of boiled sweets -- they brought it all and more. One lady who owned a Chinese restaurant sent in lunch for the whole staff. It was glorious. We ate like queens well into January. God, I miss that job.
(louveciennes , Volvospotter, Thu 8 Nov 2007, 23:34, Reply)

all for a t-shirt
A lad who worked for me would do anything for something free.

By free I mean that he'd make the whole office a brew if he could have a mousemat that someone was throwing away, he'd promise to spend half of his lunch hour dropping you off somewhere just as long as he could have a union jack pint cooler that he'd seen lying on your desk, he'd dress up as a giant fish for a day at a careers fayre in his hometown, in front of colleagues and peers. In exchange for a .co.uk branded t-shirt.

If it was free there was no ceiling to his personal investment in getting said items.

I guess, they kind of made him look 'connected'. In his mind..

It was at the aforementioned jobs fayre that he really turned up trumps though. Almost literally. A load of schoolkids arrived and some of them wrecked the toilets, shat in the sink and smeared it on the walls. On his freebie high, this lad offered to clean it up. And he did! Cleaned up a shitty bathroom, dressed as a giant fish, in front of his peers, in exhcange for an extra .co.uk branded t-shirt and abrolly.

He. Cleaned. Up. Someone. Elses. Shit.

for a t-shirt and brolly.

(I'd love to have done a great build up to this story btw but all I really remember in detail is my comment to the boss that the army recruiting stand might help the situation by 'calling the bum disposal unit' - I got a Free icy stare myself for that one)

Anyway, knowing his love of recognition I recommended him for a monthly company employee award because at the end of the day he'd scraped up some shit but moreso so I could spread the story further and even better see how the compay handled announcing the nominees / winners and why they deserved it.

He won and with his £20 voucher he got a free certificate, but more importantly after a few selected conversations with those who feed the vines, everyone had discovered what 'beyond the call of duty' really meant.

feck, I have so many stories about this lad aliong these lines.

He could also be very arsey about certain things though and one time he was the only one in a team of 10 or so who refused to move some files,yes FILES, without 'protective clothing' in case he ruined a £7 asda shirt with dust. OFFICE DUST. I shit you not. I mean FFS, I was mucking in and I was wearing a £10 Burton's shirt.

I can be a git at times like that though and I knew he was taking the piss, so my half an hour going through contracts and legislation with the health and safety manager was well spent.

A member of staff was dispatched to one of our suppliers and within an hour your man was to spend the whole day, the only one in the office - in the 8 years I've been there - to wear one of these: www.sea.com.au/html/products/pospress/pp_images/suit_dust_s.jpg

He knew he'd stepped over the line and his bluff had been called but he couldn't get out of the situation.

Even when he ripped the one he was wearing we had a spare. And another few more just in case.

As it turned out that suit was the last freebie he had off me as a boss.

He ended up reporting elsewhere and then getting sacked following a row over David Bowie.

I won't apologise for length, but maybe I should've done for the sink and smear
(Heyzeus, Thu 8 Nov 2007, 23:26, Reply)

Where i get mine from
www.absurdlycool.com

this is the site where i get all my freebees from, i have a bag full of em, from veet wax strips to quaker oats scoops ive got em all
(chrs_alsop, Thu 8 Nov 2007, 23:22, Reply)