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Winning Theatre Tickets From A Competition You Didn't Enter

OneWingedBird

OneWingedBird

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I think I heard this story wayback though it's just bubbled up in my memory this week.

A couple who live in a nice house get a letter telling them that they've won theatre tickets as a prize in a competition.

They don't remember entering the competition but figure they maybe forgot, or maybe they know they didn't but they decide to take advantage of the tickets anyway.

When they use their tickets, they come home from the theatre to discover they've been burgled.

Technically plausible as a strategy, seems to me like a lot of outlay though, esp. as some tickets would get sold or given away.

Anyone ever hear this one? Or of it happening?
 
Sounds like a variation on the funeral burglary theme, where criminals case the obituary pages for death notices from affluent households.
When everyone's at the church and wake the burglars strike and empty the home of the deceased.

A 1972 episode of Steptoe and Son called 'Oh, What A Beautiful Mourning' has this theme.

After the funeral all the relations comically race back to the house to claim the valuables, especially one particular ornament.

However, the burglars have struck and the house is stripped bare; all is gone except the valuable ornament which Albert stole before the service and had hidden under his hat. Steptoe the Klepto!
 
Krepostnoi said:
I vaguely recall a twist on this tale whereby the police sent prize-winning notifications to people who had hitherto proven elusive. They were invited to a prize-giving ceremony at a certain address, and promptly nicked when they turned up.
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There's been a few, seems to be popular in America but here's one closer to home...unless you live in America.
Criminals fall for beer sting
This article is more than 7 years old
Chesterfield police trick 19 awol suspects with offer of free beer
Beatrice Woolf
Sat 12 Nov 2011 00.58 GMTFirst published on Sat 12 Nov 2011 00.58 GMT
police-beer-trap-007.jpg

The beer sting led police to 19 suspects they had previously been unable to trace. Photograph: Johnny Green/PA
Nineteen suspected criminals have been arrested after they were tricked by police who lured them in with a hoax offer of free beer.
Derbyshire constabulary sent letters to dozens of suspects who had evaded detention for several months, inviting them to ring a marketing company offering a free crate of beer. But when suspects called the number, they were unwittingly put through to Chesterfield police station.
A time and date was arranged for the promised free alcohol to be delivered to them, but those awaiting it, at locations in Chesterfield, Staveley, Alfreton, Ilkeston, Sheffield and Nottingham, were duly arrested.
Click to expand...

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/nov/12/police-beer-trap
 
I recall this distinctly!

Story I clearly remember being published, was that a couple had their car stolen, from outside the house.

Next day, it was mysteriously returned, with a note on the windscreen apologising, explaining it had been taken in an emergency (wife about to give birth and had to be rushed to hospital?).

Two theatre tickets duly included.

Couple went to theatre, only to return home and discover they had been robbed...
 
This supposes that the criminals have the cash to splash on theatre tickets in the first place, it seems a very risky way to make money when the couple might not take them up on their offer and the burglars will have lost a hundred quid or something.
 
That's pretty much what I was thinking with regards to practicality.

The tickets might get sold on, or they just don't bother with them, or they go to the theatre but someone else is in the house that night.

Every sucessful burglary would have to cover not just the cost of the tickets for that one but also all the times the tickets didn't get a result.

Unless the crooks were after something quite specific they knew would be in there, less trouble to scope out a random house that looks unoccupied.
 
Also burglars aren't usually the type to give stuff away. Goes against their "ethos".
 
GNC said:
Also burglars aren't usually the type to give stuff away. Goes against their "ethos".
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I have heard of a burglar who left money and a note saying 'you're worse off than me'.
 
Krepostnoi said:
I vaguely recall a twist on this tale whereby the police sent prize-winning notifications to people who had hitherto proven elusive. They were invited to a prize-giving ceremony at a certain address, and promptly nicked when they turned up.
Click to expand...
I have watched a documentary re same. It was in the US. Were they not informed about winning tickets to a baseball game....?
 
Extraordinary.... if you search online for, 'police sting fake winning tickets'. there seems to be numerous occasions!
 
Comfortably Numb said:
I have watched a documentary re same. It was in the US. Were they not informed about winning tickets to a baseball game....?
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Yes, I think so.

I also remember hearing about a sting to catch people listening in to the police on scanners - they'd say there were nudists in a particular field and then arrest anyone who turned up. They also did the same saying a UFO had landed and arrested the curious, although I think they'd have had more arrests if they'd gone after people heading away from the scene :)
 
Krepostnoi said:
I vaguely recall a twist on this tale whereby the police sent prize-winning notifications to people who had hitherto proven elusive. They were invited to a prize-giving ceremony at a certain address, and promptly nicked when they turned up.
Click to expand...

I think it was in the movie Serpico that the cops set up a sting of this nature to gather all the bail-jumpers and people with large numbers of outstanding tickets
 
A story I liked didn't include a "sting" as such: a County employee (Taxation) in one of the southern US states had the good idea of cross-referencing every locally registered vehicle licence holder with the names of everyone receiving State benefits for visual impairment. The nine blind drivers were then invited to either give up their licence or their benefits. They all decided to hold onto their licence.
 
Bad Bungle said:
A story I liked didn't include a "sting" as such: a County employee (Taxation) in one of the southern US states had the good idea of cross-referencing every locally registered vehicle licence holder with the names of everyone receiving State benefits for visual impairment. The nine blind drivers were then invited to either give up their licence or their benefits. They all decided to hold onto their licence.
Click to expand...

lf only he’d transfer to Greece:

“Even by the extravagant standards of Greek corruption, the scam uncovered by Stelios Bozikis is so brazen that it is hard to credit.

Nearly 600 people on the Ionian island of Zakynthos - of which Mr Bozikis was recently elected mayor - managed to have themselves falsely declared blind, entitling them to fat monthly cheques from the state.

They included taxi drivers...”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wo...fraud-as-mayor-of-Zakynthos-faces-revolt.html

maximus otter
 
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