Corvette Car Phone Scam

Back in the 70's & 80's my parents got a lot of offers to tour retirement communities.  The lure wasn't just the promise of endless days of leisure and hot and cold running Geritol, but there was also the excitement of the elaborate and expensive prizes they'd won!  My folks weren't interested in living anywhere but their suburban bungalow home, but the prizes were intriguing enough to agree to these tours.

A particularly memorable prize was a "car phone".  Now try to remember that back in the day only Mannix and K.I.T.T. had car phones, so it sounded like a heck of a prize.  Hours of high pressure sales lectures later, my parents were presented with the above drek.  Unfortunately my father wasn't type of guy to say, "Ha ha... a car shaped phone.  Great, ya got me.  Now which of you should I talk with about punching in the face?"

Not ones to go through the tedium of learning from their mistakes, my parents were hoodwinked with similar "Let's Make A Deal" quality gag prizes a number of times.  The other one that leaps to mind is the "deluxe motor boat" which turned out to be a 6 foot long inflatable raft with a trolling motor that looked like it came off of a toy. 

Before you ask - yes, we still have the raft.  I'll use it when we win the opportunity to invest in real estate along a fragrant and thriving ecosystem... which will turn out to be a backed up sewage canal.