What would you do for £5,000? The Observer put itself to the test on 29 January 1995 by placing a small ad in Private Eye, ‘posing as a friendly if somewhat feckless and impecunious postgraduate in need of some quick cash’ – anything considered.
The advert drew two proposals. ‘I don’t want to discuss it on the telephone,’ the first respondent said, before claiming: ‘It’s not illegal.’ He put the author in touch with an associate, Juliet, who ‘immediately asked me if I realised “it” was a bit dodgy.’ It was, though, she said, fun and the fringe benefits were very good. ‘It just had to be pornography.’ It was stranger than that: a scam involving travelling the country visiting electrical retailers and requesting, under false pretences, a Sky satellite box coded card to access paid-for channels (they were then sent abroad to be sold at a profit).
