Medical research
When I was unemployed last, I did medical research. i got paid £1500 to have a few cuts done near my armpits, then have an anti-scaring drug injected into one side.

Not funny, but true.
(ScousersPet, Thu 31 Jul 2008, 22:08, 7 replies)

Lay down for three months
Get nearly 8k.

I can't find the news article, but it's NASA wanting people to experience the body effects of space, then testing out their rehab routine.
( Methylene Blue - electrohead, Thu 31 Jul 2008, 21:59, 2 replies)

YAY
Glory be, Uncle B3ta took pity on my plight and gave me my very own QOTW. Anyway, I'm going to be scouring this board for the next week looking for handy ideas, so if anyone's got anything they'd like me to do, please feel free to suggest. You never know how far I'll go. I have a tenner to my name at the moment (I'm at the bottom of two overdrafts and still have an unpaid student loan, and I don't get a job until mid-September).

Last time I was in this position (I'm not good with the concept of 'saving', see), I tried to sell an empty envelope on ebay by claiming that it constituted a work of art, and should the buyer open it, the piece was destroyed (i.e. no refunds, citing the schrodingers cat defence).

No one bid.
(jabboy, Thu 31 Jul 2008, 21:52, 6 replies)

i work in a jacket potato van
as i have no other job...don't get much..have a laugh though...going to Blackpool tomorrow (Y)
( Kaydie hasn't been on here in ages, Thu 31 Jul 2008, 21:52, Reply)

Conker's bad fur day
I loaned a tenner to my flatmate's girlfriend back in 2002 and then didn't see her for a few weeks. No problem I thought, it's only a tenner. She turned up at the flat high on some illicit substances (denied at the time as she was a semi pro wrestler) and proceeded to tell me that she had no money to pay me back, but had swiped her little brothers N64 game; Conker's bad fur day and wanted me to have it as part payment as she was sick of hearing it through her bedroom walls.

I repeatedly reassured her that I appreciated the gesture, but it wasn't necessary. Eventually I took the game with the intention of giving it back to her when she was sober/straight. She and flatmate had an almighty row that night and flatmate moved out a week later. He cut all contact with her and so we had none with her either. I did try to get in touch, but she'd left her job during the week and moved in with some other guys up north with the aim of becoming a pro wrestler and not working in Tesco anymore.

Four years later I'm packing up my own stuff as things didn't work out with my boyfriend and I stumble across the game again. I'd played it a few times and completed it, then put it away. So with no desire to play it again I listed it on eBay. Sold for £200 (plus postage). I didn't believe it was real bidding until the money cleared in my bank account. I then spent the whole summer going round cash converters and similar shops buying up their N64 games and selling them for silly money.

Not so much get rich quick as it took that long for the game to appreciate in value and the eBay market soon became saturated, but it was fun for those five days.

No apologies for length.
( fuck shit up the best you never had, Thu 31 Jul 2008, 21:43, 3 replies)

Life insurance is useless if your dead
What you will need

A fake passport, a canoe and a ticket to Panama

What you need to avoid

Posing in photographs
(Claxon_Beverage, Thu 31 Jul 2008, 21:41, 2 replies)

Slight pearoast
It's actually my daughter's story, but since she's half my DNA, I can use it. This happened two years ago.

There was girl she disliked intensely (as one would expect with 13-year-old girls), and at school they did their best to make each other miserable.

So one day my daughter pays a friend five dollars to steal the other girl's clothes while she's in gym class, and hides the clothes in an obscure corner of the locker room. Result: the enemy girl had to wear her gym clothes for the rest of the day.

The next day there's an announcement over the loudspeakers that a ten dollar reward is being offered for information as to where the girl's clothes are. My daughter marches to the office and reports that she saw some clothes in an obscure corner of the locker room. She's given the reward, and goes back to her class.

In other words, she humiliated the girl and made five dollars profit in the process. And made her enemy pay it to her. Devious and vicious, and I pity whoever else she decides to take a disliking to.

I know I shouldn't be as proud of her for that as I am, but what can I say? She takes after her dad...
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 31 Jul 2008, 21:38, 2 replies)

Pretend...
Your a spaz in the shower with an umberella

That gets you a nice cool 100K from the people at britains got talent
( Mr Nerdy-Speccy-FuckNuts Ouchy ouchy wa wa!, Thu 31 Jul 2008, 21:29, 2 replies)

Crack
I always found selling crack (both drug & ass) worked well...did you hear my cherry popping. First post...Yaaah!
(catflap I went out with Nicholas Parsons, Thu 31 Jul 2008, 21:18, Reply)

I played the lottery a bit
Even won a tenner once. Probably spent more than that on tickets.
( idonthaveafunnynickname Drink-Aware? Sure. I'm aware I want another drink., Thu 31 Jul 2008, 21:00, 3 replies)

I'm sure I've already posted this at some point...
...but a friend of mine when we were younger once went up to a smaller child who had a pound coin.
"I'll swap my shiny 50p for your dull 1 pound..."
Totally worked. 50p in the black.
( Green Spanner and his magical lack of activity, Thu 31 Jul 2008, 20:47, Reply)

GAMBLE
may i recommend gambling. maybe play a slot machine? my personal experience is the games with bonus spins are the ones to play...
(mtzadogg I drink your MILKSHAKE, Thu 31 Jul 2008, 20:34, Reply)

This is a pearoast but it fits in JUST FINE here
Whilst at college 6 odd years ago...

A friend and I conducted a test to see how much change we could gather just by asking,

"Can we have some money please?"

No pleading, no explanations, and if someone said 'no' we moved on straight away.

We asked everybody in the entire college over the course of a day. Most people bemusedly doled out a few coppers and occasionally the odd 10p, 20p, much appreciated. Some people even doled out pounds and I think we got a fiver from a stupid teacher.

We got about £40 and then announced our thanks to the common room and that we were off to get pissed. Some were angry, some were still bemused.

It was kind of pointless but we did make a lot of free money.
(Waspard has your wank bank account details, Thu 31 Jul 2008, 20:06, 3 replies)

XCopy

- Large supply of blank floppy discs
- A modem
- XCopy
- Rabid market of Amiga gamers in school circa 1990

Quids in.

See also - teenage credit card fraud of Ferris Bueller like proportions.
(mymilkshakebringsallthemongstotheyard poison hearts, poison minds - joining hate, Thu 31 Jul 2008, 20:01, 1 reply)

make money?
shit, why didn't someone tell me thats what I was supposed to do earlier.

Dammit

Thats 33 years down the pan.

Kidney anyone? retina? Soul?
(Halfy By light alone, Thu 31 Jul 2008, 19:57, 3 replies)

Free money!
Back when I were a wee lad of about 8 or 9, my family lived in a caravan park for a short time while my dad was renovating our house. On this caravan park they had a kiosk, where residents could buy the necessities and the not so necessaries.

This was long enough ago that soft drink / pop / what-have-you was sold in large glass bottles. After consuming the sugary goodness therein, said bottles could be returned for a hefty deposit of two bob (twenty cents). This was a princely sum to me - it was more than a week's pocket money! I didn't actually get any pocket money at the time, but that's neither here nor there.

Understandably, much time was spent scouring the caravan park for empty bottles, which were quickly exchanged for silver. However, it was a slow process and fraught with danger (lots of barking doggies in this caravan park, not to mention scary shouty caravan-dwelling troglodytes).

One day, we found where the kiosk staff stored the empty returns. Hundreds of them, around the back of the kiosk, in big crates, hidden behind a fence, with an open gate. Where no-one could see you.

Yes, I did get rich quick. Unfortunately I spent all my ill-gotten gains on lollies / sweeties and was violently ill for the next 6 hours. I didn't do it again.
( argyleblanket The man on the roof works for me, Thu 31 Jul 2008, 19:57, 1 reply)

Start up a clamping business
Find the yuppiest spot in your city and randomly clamp anything that doesn't have a badge on it, charging the yuppies £200 for a "Quick Release Fine" or threaten them with a cheaper "1 Week Referral Release" for £150. I'd imagine 9/10 people would opt for the £200 quick released and then never go near that spot again.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Thu 31 Jul 2008, 19:48, 3 replies)

Two Get Rich Quick Options
1. Marry someone filthy rich
Things to look for:
*The older the better, that way they should die off pretty quickly leaving more money for you
*Small family, they will resent you for taking a bit of their inheritance.


Pros
*If you time it right you could be free of the decrepit skin bag within a couple of years.
*You can spend whilst married. To rid yourself of some self loathing of having a wrinkly shriveled penis in you/having to put your dick in the equivalent of a sandpaper lined pint glass buy a sports car. Go on very long drives. Regularly.

cons
*You will probably have to sleep with some wrinkled old bag who physically repulses you.
*You will probably be the target for all tabloids and websites. But who doesn't like being the centre of attention?
*You will have to remain faithful, adultery will lose you that cash. If you are tempted to cheat take a bath in £50 notes and remember money is more important than a easy lay. Masturbation is your friend.
*You may end up going mad and ODing on cocaine.
*However tempting you must not kill off your spouse. If them asking for more "sugar" gets too much then killing tramps/chavs/gypos should relieve some stress.


2. Win the Lottery
Things to look for:
*Sadly this one is pretty much all luck

Pros
*You won't have to do anything disgusting (see above)

Cons
*13,000,000 to 1 odds.
( TGB checking Off Topic is still shit at, Thu 31 Jul 2008, 19:22, 1 reply)

I started
actually collecting a pound for every time I heard that.
( Moey, Thu 31 Jul 2008, 19:16, Reply)

Glastonbollox
Part 1 - Nice one matey!

Back in the day or 1993 if you prefer, my mate Erad had an old ambulance. A plan was hatched to get into the Glastonbury festival which involved:
tarting up said ambulance
a flashing blue light for the roof
siren noises
ambulance driver uniforms

So the ambulance was cleaned and buffed with T-Cut, windows blacked out, new go faster stripes applied. Magnetic flashing blue light was purchased from industrial suppliers. Speaker was placed under bonnet and wired to £1 special effects key-ring. Blue caps and pullovers were purchased from same industrial suppliers.

We were ready to go but how does this relate to money making? That was in the form of a massive stack of crates of the most piss-weak lager known to man purchased from Netto for the princely sum of 25p per can.

Worked like a dream, two in uniform in the front, another 5 hidden in the back. We drove in through the exit, light flashing, siren sounding pretty iffy but who's to question it? Security just waved us through. Found a nice quiet spot obscurred by some big traveller buses and the selling of the wank-beer could begin.

Sold out in no time, had to put the price up from £1 per can to £1.50. I remember one chap asking "is it any good?". "No it's piss" I replied. "I'll have 4 please" said he.

Great weekend spending our ill-gotten gains.

Part 2 - Bastards!

Tried the same trick again next year but made the mistake parking in an area that had to be cleared to erect a stage. Thrown out. Beer confiscated. Ambulance impounded costing £150 to get out which we didn't have so I phoned my girlfriend and her dad paid it, the shame.

The police interrogation was quite a laugh, lots of daft questions like "do you turn up at the scenes of accidents?". Yeah we're necrophilliacs. The Chief Super or whatever he was called said "If I see you again this weekend I'm going to shove you right up my arse", some West Country custom? "Can I have that in writing" I said. He went a slightly more purple shade of purple.

Happy daze.
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Thu 31 Jul 2008, 19:09, 5 replies)

I was on the receiving end of a get rich quick scheme...
...namely identity fraud. A good 10 years ago, I had a housemate who turned out to be a complete bastard. He had loans, credit cards in my name to the tune of 36,000.
I'm still paying it off now and will be for anther 5 years.

HOWEVER

As I am in need of a get rich quick scheme I propose I attempt the stupidist scheme you b3tan's can come up with. After all, I *really* have nothing to lose.
(General Lee, Thu 31 Jul 2008, 19:07, 5 replies)

secrets and lies
i had a friend at university. more than one, believe it or not, but this story concerns one friend in particular. lovely dennis.

dennis was a mother's dream. tall, good looking, very well spoken, got a first, played football on the first team, and was an outstanding musician with a band that was starting to go places on the london circuit. however, towards the end of our final year, he got involved with mrs dennis. she was not so much fun and she did not like him doing anything without her. so gradually he began to change and we heard less and less from him. eventually we gave up altogether.

fast forward two years after graduation and they were married with a baby and a bun in the oven. i hadn't heard from dennis in all this time, so was thrilled to get an out of the blue email from him inviting me over to sunday lunch in east london. he said the invite had a purpose, but he'd "have to kill me" if he revealed what it was. he and mrs dennis would be driving in from berkhamsted, he added. hmmmm. odd. i had forgotten they had moved out of wapping. why were we going for lunch in east london when i lived in west london and he lived way around the m25?

anyway, the day came, and, as instructed, i got dressed in a suit and all made up. hmmmm. odd. why a suit?

the dennises arrived too late for lunch, but it was ok, they'd eaten on the way there, apparently. well, i hadn't, and i spent the drive to east london hungrily eyeing up the baby. then we arrived at this hotel way out in the docklands. hmmmm. odd. why so isolated?

the crowd of people was enormous. there were hundreds of them. now, dennis is blond and about 6'5. he stands out in most crowds. but he really really stood out in this one. as did mrs dennis and i - because we were the only three people there (plus baby) who weren't (i) in their 40s or older; (ii) very very stout; (iii) wearing glitter; and (iv) black. we stuck out like pork pies in a synagogue. except that a lot of them were all loudly praising jesus, which i guess doesn't happen so much in a synagogue. hmmmmm. odd. why had dennis brought me to what appeared to be a deep south black baptist revival ceremony?

mrs dennis and the baby headed into the bar with a book and vanished. how i envied them. instead, i followed dennis into this top secret cult-ish presentation. it was immediately obvious to me that it was a scam. i kept thinking of that line in the simpsons where they say, "now this isn't one of those illegal pyramid schemes, no sirreebob. this is a trapezium scheme." the propaganda was literally unbelievable. we were made to stand and sing and clap, then we were bombarded with loud music and images of speed boats, luxury houses, cars, yachts, paradise islands, private jets, all pounding on wide screen televisions with funky music, and every now and again the gorgeous black american girls at the front would stand up, wiggle their bums and yell, "do you wanna fulfil your potential? yes, do you want to live up to what de lord gave you?"

in and amongst this outrageous stuff was the details on how to do it. how you signed up, then got people to sign up under you. for every instruction there was about 20 mins of these glamorous pictures and testimonials. it was the most brainwashy thing i have ever seen, and every few minutes another person would leap up and scream that they would join, and then everyone else would have to stand up and cheer. stiff white people in suits with no rhythm do not do this well. not at all. especially when one is embarrassed as hell and, being a trainee lawyer, is pretty damn sure it's both a civil and a criminal offence. i really couldn't work out what dennis was thinking, dragging me to it.

anyway, after about 5 hours, we were allowed a break. i was thirsty, starving, baffled and exhausted. dennis asked me what i thought. at this stage, i'd have done anything to get the hell out of there and had almost convinced him i was ill enough to go home. then mrs dennis' mum arrived. she was 200lbs of evil, and she sat straight down next to me and asked me if i'd signed up yet. when i said no, she looked really affronted. then she said, unbelievably, "well, you must. dennis and mrsdennis are a young couple with two babies; they need all the help they can get." she had no more shame than to say this. then she showed me her own pyramid of sales people and said that she had made £20,000 so far. well yes. the people who get in on these scams first always do.

when we went back in, the real sales push began. you weren't allowed out of the room without speaking to an advisor. if it's about £200, i thought, fuck it. i'll just sign up and never come back. no way would i ever have brought one of my friends to these meetings. and i couldn't believe dennis had done it to me. but then, after a 2 hour wait, i got to see an advisor. it turned out they were taking TWO THOUSAND POUNDS off these people. my jaw quite literally hung open. i refused to sign anything, and eventually dennis took me out of there.

mrsdennis' mum was really angry with me. she said, "so we've all wasted the whole day, then." ffs. i did not ask to go! i thought we were having a catch up pub lunch. i sat in the back of the car, shaking with rage. the next day, i did some research, and sent dennis a long email about the criminal offence he had committed by taking me to that - it's an offence to sell something of which membership of the scheme is the only thing you are selling, to keep it brief. dennis replied and said thanks for the tip, but that it was working well for mrsdennis' mum so they'd stick with it if i didn't mind.

a month later it was shut down for being illegal and the directors stripped of their assets. god knows how many people were ripped off by it. dennis and i haven't spoken since. but it was a real experience for me, if a truly frightening one - i've never seen anything like that level of brainwashing before.

apologies for length, but it's what the lord done give me.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Thu 31 Jul 2008, 19:03, 10 replies)

Not really that quick....
...but it does work and costs me feck all.

I do these pyramid referral schemes and have since last year got a free Xbox360, a DS Lite and a Wii. The way I did it was signing upto someone's referral link on a site and doing an offer on a legit site. Once I'd tested that I then left me referral link on me profile here and left a hint on me signature too. Then I totally forgot about it for a few months. Don't rush it as you'll just get stressed out. The beauty about this is that I most probs could haggle a few peeps to get a few earlier credits, but this way I'm getting freebies for posting on B3ta :D :D :D Excellent.

PS plus if somehow this makes the newsletter I get my link emailed to thousands, so I should get enough for a free HDTV too wooo
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Thu 31 Jul 2008, 18:56, 2 replies)

Someone came into the shop I used to work at
asking if we sold infra-red controlled relay units, as he needed to kit out a fleet of vans with remotely-opened door mechanisms. I honestly replied that we only sold kits for such a thing but I could build them a sample and they could pay me to solder them together if they liked them.

A few days later they called back to say- sorry, hand-built quality isn't really up to a long life expectancy, perhaps we'll look elsewhere for it.

Rats.

I was thinking- perhaps I could buy a cheap car alarm with a plip and disconnect the siren and put in a relay instead... hard work.. might be worth it... looked through the catalogue for the car alarm section.

What's this? A remote control radio frequency relay for opening motorised garage doors with- shit, I didn't know that was in here. I better get on the phone and let them know that they can buy them from...here....hang on...

(on the phone in a flash)

Hello? Yes, it's me again. I've found a place that does sort of what you're looking for, radio frequency instead of infra red but does the same job(and you don't have to point them) but (technically true) they don't manufacture them in this country. I know the distributor (technically true, I worked for them) so I can procure them for you.

They were pleased with this arrangement.

"What's the unit cost then?"

erm...err...ermm.... looks at catalogue, sees price is £20.

My mouth opened by itself and I couldn't believe that the words "£40" popped out before I could complain to myself about blatant profiteering.

"Great. We'll take 100 please".

!!!!!!

Not bad for 1992 and earning about 15% of my annual pay for about 4 hours work.

My second bit of advice (well, it's more like get better off slowly than get rich quick) is that you probably won't get rich working for someone else. Twice in my life now I've doubled my take home by leaving full-time employment and working on contract.

I know, no holiday or sickies but you aren't earning money for the company that pays for the dick-head bullshit-for-interpersonal-skills manager to jet off around Europe for 'meetings' with other area office managers that generate precisely fuck-all work and even less income. Satisfaction is hard to measure but it counts for a lot :-)
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Thu 31 Jul 2008, 18:40, Reply)

im
a whore
(kristofski6992, Thu 31 Jul 2008, 18:24, 3 replies)

Bought some shares...
...in the company I worked for. They went up in price by 10x.

Then I listened to the CEO, who said, basically "This is just the start, lads. Hold on, or you'll miss out."

Why settle for clearing my mortgage when I could be a millionaire? thought I, naive and bright as a new-pressed daisy.

Then the dot com bubble burst.

Sold them on the way down for what I paid for them, before they then tanked another 95%. So I guess it could have been worse.

Annoying that we could be putting the wee ones through private school with as much caviar and hats as they can eat, if only I hadn't listened to the smarmy so-and-so. Ah well...
( Amish Information Systems hates misplaced, commas, Thu 31 Jul 2008, 18:09, 2 replies)

I may have a few answers for this one.
I’ve always known that I would never exactly get rich, but I’ve had some experience in scamming up money. I’ve been in enough dodgy situations that I had to bail myself out of…

One of the not-so-bright schemes I tried was cutting down trees for people. How hard could it really be, after all? A chainsaw is a pretty simple piece of equipment, after all. A friend of mine had shown me how to use spikes to climb a tree (the kind that strap to your leg like a demented rooster spur), and I knew I could borrow his set for this.

A bloke I knew had a tree that was mostly dead and had been for some time. I told him that he should get a couple of estimates and I’d beat the price, but that he should also contact his insurance company to find out what they’d pay toward it. (The answer is: fuck-all. Unless it had been hit by lightning or some such, it was purely his responsibility- and now that they knew of it, if it fell on anything they wouldn’t pay out any damages, as he was obviously aware of the problem. Translation: get it cut down now or you’re buggered. He was NOT happy. Arse.)

Well, I agreed on a price, and went shinning up the tree- a spindly oak that had been surrounded by trees before, so it was a toothpick with branches at the top. I figured I could top it out below the branches, let that part fall into the yard, then come down a way and do it again. I climbed higher and higher, but was still a distance below the branches- when I heard the tree creaking beneath my weight.

Oh shit.

Very well then, I’ll cut it here and let a somewhat larger chunk fall into the yard than planned. I had been trailing up a slender rope that was tied to the chainsaw, so I hauled the thing up the tree, ignoring the creaking going on around me. I started the saw, cut the notch, then the back cut well above it. The top groaned and toppled the direction I had planned, so I stopped the saw and used one hand to grip the trunk.

You know how every action produces a reaction?

Imagine a toothpick tree losing a third of its height. The top third leans over, pushing against the very tall stump. What happens when it lets go? That’s right- SPROING!

It was a good thing I had my hand on the trunk. When I stopped swaying up there I realized that something else had let go as well. I had not come prepared with extra pants, sadly…

I got the tree down, and my mate told me not to worry about cutting it up further, that he’d take care of it. He handed me over a wad of cash, and I begged a plastic bin bag from him for the seat of my truck.

It was a squishy ride home, but at least I could now pay rent for the month…
(Shimrod, Thu 31 Jul 2008, 18:03, Reply)

Become an expert in something
...then buy and sell.

For example:

I am a bit of a collector of vinyl records. I was leafing through a box of records down Hitchin market when I spotted something which I knew to be rare and collectable priced at a mere £6. I snapped it up.

On the way home I called at the home of this record dealing geezer who gave me £10 for it. That's a profit of £4 for 30 minutes work and 20 years of accumulated knowledge.

Help me.
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Thu 31 Jul 2008, 17:56, 15 replies)

Charity begins at home
I pay off the local vets for Labrador corpses. I then laminate them and put them on display where there's a lot of footfall.

Like this:
farm3.static.flickr.com/2055/2482026967_5ddfe85e73.jpg?v=0

I'm not claiming this idea as my own as most of my childhood was spent similarly ensconced in plastic with leg braces on. Cheers Dad.

That slot's a bastard when it rains.
(Heyzeus, Thu 31 Jul 2008, 17:53, 4 replies)