Mooney's Money is a Scam

Normally I don't listen to RTÉ Radio 1 in the afternoon. Like most people I work at that time. But today was an exception. Last week I had ordered coal for the winter, and today they were delivering it to my house. So I took the afternoon off, to be at home when they come.

If you're not there when they bring the coal, they just drop it outside your front door and then you'll have a hell of a dirty work on your hands shifting the stuff into the backyard.

While I was waiting for the coal lorry to arrive, I had the radio on. And so I heard the 'Mooney Show', which is on Radio 1 every weekday afternoon from 3 o'clock to 4.30 pm. It's supposed to be a light bridge between 'Live Line' and 'Drive Time'. Well, it's not too bad, but for my taste too hyped-up on trivialities.

I remember Derek Mooney as a young and eager RTÉ reporter with a special interest in wildlife. In fact I used to watch quite a few of the nice little films that ran as a series, called 'Mooney goes wild on 1'.
I wonder if anyone in RTÉ saw the potential double entendre in that title, as Mooney was probably one of the first gay men the station employed in a prominent position.

But the films were really about animals. All sorts of animals, big and small, common or unusual. It beats me why that series is no longer produced. It was good, clean television, informative, educational and often also entertaining.

Maybe it was just too simple and straight-forward for modern TV, where everything needs to be spun and twisted. So now Mooney is on Radio 1, when he's not presenting one of the tacky game shows RTÉ still runs for the National Lottery. Embarrassing really how people behave on those shows. They would tell psychologists an awful lot about the Irish psyche...

I listened with some interest to the programme, but I was not chaffed by it. Just some bits and pieces to fill 90 minutes of dreary afternoon, mixed together for those who are at home at that time (which are not the most active, productive or critical people).

But there was one element in the show that made me sit up and listen in amazement, which has meanwhile made way to anger. The item is called 'Mooney's Money', and I am told that it is part of the programme every day. It runs like this: Mooney asks a really stupid or dead-easy question, one of those a three-year-old could answer without difficulty.
(I hate such questions, as they are saying two things: We at RTÉ think that our listeners are morons, and we don't care if we insult the intelligence of the few listeners who are not morons.)

Then they urge the listeners to phone or text the studio with the answer, and one winner - yes, just one, and apparently "randomly selected from the correct entries" - is promised a prize of € 1000. So far, so good.
But then comes the catch. "Entries cost € 1," says a sluttish sounding female voice from a tape. And if that were not enough, she adds insult to financial exploitation and explains: "Entries from mobiles cost more."

She doesn't say how much more, even though I think she should. But then again, the whole thing is a scam and made to appeal to morons.
So those who are dumb enough to fall for it and actually do phone or text (which is only possible from mobiles, and they "cost more") in the answer, will be fleeced for a minimum of € 1, and perhaps as much as € 2.50 per entry.
As the question is so easy that there is virtually no chance of a wrong answer, there must be thousands of people trying their 'luck'.

And this is how RTÉ gets the € 1000 prize money each day, and makes plenty of profit from the scam on top of it. So what they are giving away is not 'Mooney's Money', but yours, if you are dumb enough to participate.
If the money would really come from Derek Mooney, it would set him back a quarter of a million Euros in a year. And that would be more than the € 242,408 RTÉ pays him per annum.

No, don't be fooled! 'Mooney's Money' is really your money, and RTÉ makes plenty more from the scam. Yes, that's what it is.
A scam. And I wonder if this sort of thing should be done by our national broadcaster, to which we all pay our annual fee to keep it running. I think it's wrong. In fact it stinks.

When I mentioned it to Sean Fitzpatrick, my philosophical and dear neighbour, last night, he told me that a similar scam is also part of the 'Afternoon Show' on RTÉ 1 television. Same concept, same money.
So this is not just a glitch on Mooney's show. There is system in it.
A system to rob the gullible viewers and listeners who have time in the afternoon of their hard-earned money.

It's bad enough that the banks, the government, the supermarkets, coal merchants and almost everyone else robs us blind every day. Now even RTÉ is joining in. Shame on you, you greedy and ruthless people at Donnybrook! And shame on you, Derek Mooney! I would never have expected such a scam from a man who likes animals.