Barred from Maccy D's
Not for any of the usual reasons either. Again, I always liked bending the rules and being too clever for my own good, so this was too tempting an opportunity to pass up.

The aforementioned burger chain was running a Trivial Pursuit advertising campaign, giving away scratchcards with (fairly) tough questions on them. If you scratched off the correct answer (and only the correct answer) then you would have won a burger, some chips, a drink or one of the wholly fictitious big cash prizes.

First we collected discarded non-winning scratchcards until we had the whole set with the correct answers. Then, every morning we'd run in before school and grab, oh, let's say 2" thick of new scratchcards apiece and spend the day rubbing off the right answers. These were now a potent currency which could be traded for more or less anything at school.

Until the other boys got wind of it. Before long there was a queue at McDonalds before they opened in the mornings. The scratchcards flew out as fast as they could stock them and returned to their tills just as rapidly. Obviously we were completely taking the piss - we ate like kings at McDonalds for the whole duration of the promotion without spending a penny until the manager did the sensible thing and barred my entire school unless they carried money. Naturally this affronted us, as it meant we had to catch a bus to the next McDonalds along...until they cottoned on and we couldn't be bothered to go further afield.

The next time they ran the Trivial Pursuit promotion, it was covered in disclaimers like "Only one scratchcard to be issued at a time" and "Only one scratchcard to be redeemed at a time". I'd like to think I was responsible for that.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Wed 4 Feb 2009, 10:18, 2 replies)

Great story
Way to stick it to the man!
( SpankyHanky, Wed 4 Feb 2009, 10:21, closed)

no one ever
"ate like kings" at McDonalds fwiw
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Wed 4 Feb 2009, 10:53, closed)