Be honest, how often do you read EVERY WORD of the fine print? I think most of us just check the box without really knowing what we're doing (the only exception for me would be when I bought a house...I read ALLLL of that paperwork!).
Well, a travel insurance company in St. Pete called SquareMouth recently decided to see just how many people read the entire agreement... with a secret $10,000 contest.
The only place they mentioned the contest was in the fine print of one of their travel insurance forms. They buried the instructions way down in the middle of page seven, and didn't tell anyone about it.
The instructions said that the first person who mentioned the contest would get the $10,000 prize. And if no one noticed within a year, they were planning to give the money to charity. They actually thought that's what would happen.
But it turns out there are people out there who read these things. 59-year-old Donelan Andrews teaches at a high school about 60 miles south of Atlanta. She says she always reads every user agreement and contract she signs. And she spotted the contest!
She thinks that reading contracts is really important, and even hides secret questions in her students' tests. So if they pay attention and read carefully, they can get extra credit. And Donelan practices what she preaches, apparently!
She bought an insurance policy from the company . . . read the whole contract . . . and got in touch with them about 23 hours after they launched the contest. So they gave her a check for $10,000 last week, plus an extra 10 grand to help out her school district. Wow! Lesson learned!
[WGXA]