Episode Transcription

00:00 Are you smarter than a game show house? Yeah, this is a good episode where we're talking about people who weren't and some people who were actually a little both sides and people who conned the game. Who wants to be a millionaire? There was a UK, US and Ireland version and they conned all three of them to be honest yeah and then a couple people who got caught with their with their scheme, their scheme, their scheme, their scandal yeah yeah. 00:24 Hey, this is November twelve. What do you got going on number twelve? Man, honest thanks for asking yeah haven't. I don't spend hanging out. That's not what I meant. Oh, November, fourteen this week and I'm in Woodbridge, Virginia and then I am in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida this weekend with Shama, Marama and Mike Goodwin. Please come to those shows next week. I'm in Kansas City and then we're in Dallas Longview and Waco, Texas. So yeah, it's pretty exciting stuff. 00:53 and then and then it's Thanksgiving, so I get Thanksgiving off. That's exciting. Now, he's exciting. Good times. So yeah, they come out to the shows. We're going to have a really good time. So and then if right now, if it's November 12th right now, but there's an episode that's going to come out November 19th, we put these out every Tuesday and if you're like man, I cannot wait for that episode to come out, you can join our Patreon. You can get it right now, right now. So but for now, here is this week's episode. This is things I learned last night. This is a comedy podcast. 01:19 we joke around. We laugh. If you came to actually learn about the topic, you're going to learn about it, but you might yeah. I mean we're going to learn about it. That's what thing, but we're also going to joke around the whole time, so and there's might be aliens. 01:35 Hey man, what's up? Have you heard of the consortium, the consortium consortium consortium consortium consortium? Okay, have you heard of it? No, let me ask you this. Have you heard of patties 01:55 shut up. Have you heard? Have you heard of Patty Spooner? You're you're laughing at the name Spooner. I'm having at the name Patty Spooner PAD, D, why so that's a funny name, Adi Spooner, Adi Spooner. No, what about the name Keith Burgess? Keith Burgess Yeah is Toby Keith's real name close 02:25 Charles Ingram. Have you heard of Charles Ingram? That's Laura Ingram's dad. Close. Have you heard of Diana Ingram? Wait, 02:35 Wait. 02:37 diana ingram, Charles Ingram, yeah, is Laura Ingraham Wilder's dad close. Have you heard of tech when with ock? Do you know who Laura Ingram Wilder's that sounds familiar? Is that her name? Am I getting that wrong? Alex Laura Ingram Wilder? Is that correct? Laura Ingalls Wilder, that's what you're thinking of gosh. Yeah, she was your little house. Wife last night. What is your wife's last name? Sorry 03:05 she hasn't changed yet. I'm not. I'm not sharing that information on the internet. That's my security question. Security question is what's your wife's maiden name on some things you know that my is one of the three. Well, I know something what's your mother's maiden name and I actually there's like different forms that I get caught on or like I like because my mom's maiden name is my current last name. 03:33 Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, my dad changed my dad's maiden name. Yeah anyway. No, have you heard of tech when with tech when with ock quick? We got we got to do more episodes today. Just get on with it. Okay, fine, let's start with the. Let's start with Charles. You're a doctor, Ike Hershkoff. He's on the list. You saw the list today 04:00 so here's the deal. Have you okay? So Charles Ingram, let me show you a picture of Charles and his wife. This is Charles and Diana Ingram. Okay, so this is a fraud. They're holding each other too close. This guy stole a lot of money. He also is exactly what the animators looked at for despicable me and they were like just make his nose really big yeah yeah. 04:22 That's hilarious. She is they look. You know what this looks like? This looks like the new lead pastors of your small baptist church. Oh yikes. Honestly though, I here's the thing. Here's the thing. This went out of style years ago, but I think today I think those green countertops are back like I love them. I don't think they're back, but like I 04:51 love them. You would put them in. I would put them in that looks sick in my way. Here of decor is like the Cheesecake Factory Kitchen. You don't talk about yeah that's like two thousand four yeah yeah yeah that's two thousand four like then there was like a Tuscan kitchen vibe for a while yeah yeah like the brick wall and the yeah and it was just way too much like you looked like it looked like zeo's Italian restaurant in there. Everything on the walls would be like like metal like 05:17 yeah shapes and you couldn't have a more than four inches apart right a little sculpture. You stuck to your wall. Yeah, those were the days Charles Ingram and his wife, they and his name Charles Ingram, Diana Ingram. They both have a name Charles Ingram and his wife. Even know the episodes about her she's the main character of it and you're like Charles, a chal's, Ingros wife. 05:47 he's not even a character in the story. He died years before this happened, but you're such a massage is that you can't refer to her as her own name. 06:02 Okay, so Diana and Charles were like a lot of people in the early two thousands big, big fans of Prince Charles and Dian. They were like we got the same name close. They were big, big fans of game shows, specifically quiz shows and more than any of all of them, the ones that they like trivia 06:30 yeah yeah yeah. The one that they liked the most was who wants to be a millionaire. You remember that one? Yes, for our younger audience, who wants to be a millionaire was a quiz show and you know now there's actually a reboot of this. Is it really? Yes, I didn't know it's it's who wants to be a millionaire celebrity edition who's hosting it biceps boy 06:53 what am I? Why am I supposed to Alfonzo Alonzo, whatever his name is for Carlton from Carlton biceps, Carlton, I but what you want about him? No is not no he's not. He was just on it. Sorry Jimmy Kimmel is hosting it. Jimmy Kimmel's hosting it okay, and so it's who's one who it's literally who wants to be a millionaire celebrity and it's like duos. It's like 07:17 Nick, Carl and John Mulaney went on together, which is so stupid because everyone they have on is already a millionaire yeah. So yeah, what are they? Do they win a million dollars? It doesn't go to charity. Yeah yeah, like nobody likes watching someone win for charity. No one's watching it for sure. If you're like oh okay cool yeah, that's rough yeah, so if you don't know what he wants to be a millionaire is the concept of the show is 07:45 didn't when Frankie Grande was on Big Brother, which if you aren't familiar, Frankie Grande is Starbucks, Grande's brother and when he went on Big Brother, Tim doesn't listen to anything. I say no, I'm listening carry great yeah. I can multitask yeah. What did I just say? You said when Frank, you're on. He was on Big Brother and who was Frankie Grande? You said he was one character on Big Brother 08:13 I don't know. I've never seen big brother, okay, he's ariana grande's brother yeah yeah yeah yeah, but I said he was starbucks grand his brother and you just didn't acknowledge that okay. Yeah, you weren't in listening. You just let me say that crap so stupid and it's not even like you went. Oh, that's a bad joke because it was you literally just did hear me say it golly dude. So anyway, 08:43 Frankie Grande, who is star by Brian Day's brother, there we go. I was going to joke. He was already rich and yeah. I was remember when Zack was in the D R and was just like just giving the money already. He's going to give to charity anyway. It was so funny because there were people on the show who genuinely like that seven hundred thousand dollars at the time was only five hundred thousand five hundred thousand would change their lives and Frank was like 09:10 I'm just here to have a good time and play big brother and if I win, I'm going to give it to charity and it's like if I got stuck in the house, I would. I would murder someone on TV. You're saying anyway, yeah, no one wants to watch rich people be like you. No one wants to watch rich people do good things. Yeah, yeah, you're exactly right. They want to watch poor people do good things. That's why they're here. Yeah watching our show. It's hope it's all about hosted by two well hosted by 09:40 one poor person and one person who's doing okay, who who by fifty years ago, standard would be upper middle class, but by today's standard is for upper lower lower class. 10:00 Okay, so if you don't know what the show who wants to be a millionaire is, if you're younger, it's a show where there's a serious assumed that you were the one who was doing okay. There's a series of fifty. I didn't assume that oh there's a series of fifty questions. What I was saying each of the questions is worth a different dollar amount and your goal is to get through all the questions. 10:19 and every question you earn, however much that is the first question to be million. First question is a hundred dollars. Second question is two hundred eventually. Once you don't add up, it just becomes it becomes that's your total that you have and so eventually question fifteen is worth a million dollars. If you and at any point you can stop and take whatever your money. If you answer the question that's worth two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, yeah, you can say I don't want to keep going. I want to hear, but if you go to the next question you answer wrong, you lose everything you lose it all. It's like dealer, no deal. We're just Philbin hosted it. 10:49 Yeah, he was very dramatic the whole day in the whole show was yeah. The sound effects were killer. Yeah, the sound effects were in my dreams every night as a child. Every time something scary happened, it was yeah, so then every time every time I had a time in the dream where I had to come up with something quickly, it's tired to play. Who wants to be a millionaire? I try to read just so who wants to be a millionaire? 11:15 the next words are the other people who cheated. Is that who we're talking about maybe so it was at this moment that Tim knew he didn't bury the lead as well as he could have much like when a murderer's victim gets found shallow grave Tim's clues to were not buried deep enough. Oh no, they found my rug, so they Charles Ingram and his wife 11:43 they competed on the UK version of which no one watched. He wants to be a millionaire. No, it was really popular in the UK. No one watched it in the US, but the UK they at the height had like nineteen million viewers, which is a third of the population. No one in that country exists. I do think that they made up the UK is just like a fun little just like a bit. Yeah, okay, the whole thing doesn't exist like like that's a wikipedia scandal. Yes, 12:12 and it's just gotten a little too far out of. I do believe that there's some kids in ninety nine who are like, I'd be funny if we change the Wikipedia for. I don't know. No, I think I had a there was a ocean over the idea that I've talked about where you know the US section like just thousands of years behind the rest of the world, but our leaders have just really kept us in a propaganda machine yeah, and so any time you take that like eighteen hour flight to the UK, you're just going in circles and they land you out in the middle of the 12:40 well, what they would say is like you know ice cold Canada up there or whatever, but it's really just like they've set up fake countries and stuff you go to. So you like I've been there like I've been to Israel. I know exists yeah, but it's not it's not what you think of Canada. It's a set it's a movie anyway, whatever I so you case real so I guess next note Adrian or 13:10 Charles and his wife Diana. I should say this actually Diana's brother, Adrian Pollock. This is him, Adrian Pollock, got on the show. He's the veil of glam Morgan. I have no idea. That's why I say the UK doesn't exist bro. Oh, he's the veil of glam Morgan. 13:36 glam Morgan that yeah, that is that's the J P Morgan chases glam wing make up artists for J P Morgan. Okay, so her brother Adrian gets got on the show in like ninety nine two thousand something like that and he won thirty two thousand dollars was thirty two thousand dollars for reference on that show. That's getting to question number eleven oh wait ten question number ten okay. 14:06 And so that's a good run because there's 15 total questions. So it's like exponentially getting higher each time. And so Diana saw that and was like, I'm smarter than my brother. And so she got on and she also got to thirty two thousand dollars. So they tied and she was really upset after the taping of the show. They always do like because the way the show tapings happen, they're not live. And so like all the contestants are in that crowd. 14:35 And again, if you don't watch the show, the way they pick out the contestant, you had to apply to be on the show. When you applied to be on the show, what they would do is they would call you and when you would answer the phone, they would ask you a question when you answered the phone. They wouldn't tell you who it was. They would ask you a question and it'd be a sort of question like how tall is Big Ben? And you would have to give an answer. And if you were within a close enough range, they would say, okay, you can come beyond who wants to be a million. So. 15:03 the answer to that is like I think it's nine in line. There's just this is a true story. This is one hundred. I wouldn't even go high. No, this is a producer from that part was a how to be a man. I was a joke. They do call. You just answer your your work. Hey, they wouldn't even say like here's what we're looking for. You're the receptionist where Diana works. Sorry Charles wife works. You're the receptionist where Charles wife works right and you get a phone call. You go 15:33 hi. This is the stay at home mom store and sorry sorry you're right. That was that was wrong. That was wrong. I know this is a stay at home mom store, you know, because they're in the UK or whatever. The voice is like a voice changer. It's like super tight. How tall it's an American accent to how tall is Ben Ben Franklin. 16:02 Well, but once you've committed to you make a mistake, asking the question, you have to commit the question. You're like you give it out. Dolls been free. I mean I rung all been six to close enough. You can be on who wants to be a million like. Oh, I didn't want this. I think I think Charles wife wants to be on that show. Oh sorry, kind of weird that you call her Charles wife. Have you met Charles? No hi and she's a stay at home wife stole 16:31 hi. This is can I do wants to be a play in there is Charles's wife there. Oh, it's actually quite a few Charles wife. You had to be more specific. You K it's the one whose brother's name is a only I that's the patriarchy at work. There's way more confusing than it needs to be. I hate that 17:00 If you've been watching for a minute and you like this show, Our patrons get a ton of perks for their support. 17:12 We do monthly hangouts. There's a way to get birthday messages on your birthday. There's a lot of great perks, but more than anything, you just help make sure that this show continues to happen forever. We never want to stop. We're going to keep doing this forever. If we have enough patrons supporters, we can put our brains in those little vats and like have AI pretend it's us. And so like we can keep doing it long after we die, but that only happens if you support us on Patreon. So we appreciate your support. Thanks for your help. If you don't want to support, that's totally fine. Thanks for being here. We really appreciate you watching the show. 17:44 Yeah, so no, they wouldn't do that. They literally did that. They would introduce a call. They were hey, we're yeah, you we think you qualify. Here's a question to see how smart you are and if you and it would always be something like that where there was a range and so if you were within five or ten units of whatever they were looking for, they would let you call one of my friends from your phone. They don't have your phone number and just see if they answer and try. This is who wants to be a millionaire. We love to have you on. My name is yeah 18:13 Can we do that? Yeah, we can try it. Let's just call it from the Google Voice. We could just hit some randos with it. All right, sure okay. No, I'm in like now. Oh well, I weren't a guy. Why? That's all right. Fine. I guess not. You can say no. I mean I said yes, I just I don't think we're prepared right now. We got a okay on speaker phone, so they would call yeah, and then if you got cleared, they would fill the studio, the set, the studio audience would be all the people who they cleared for it. 18:43 and so then, but the catch was you're now in the studio audience. You have to get onto the hot seat sure way. They did that at the start of the episode. They had what was called the fast finger and that was there was a question and you had a little little unit at your seat and you had to answer it before everyone else. You had to be the first one to buzz in the hey, so the host would get out. He'd ask the fast finger question and everyone would try to be the first and if you got there, then you got selected. You got to go down and be on the show and so a lot of people. Why they do that 19:12 I don't know. It was just a thing that they did okay, so to get on the show is pretty hard like you had dolls. You had to go through the approval process. You had to answer the question on the phone right and you had to have the fastest finger in the crowd yeah, and then if you didn't you had to watch someone else. Yeah, but and you had to clap and cheer for them. What what happened was they were record a few of these a day, okay, because so they'd sit down. They record like six of them, so the whole audience would be there and they'd be hoping okay. I'm watching you wait for nothing. I'm going to get to go next. Hopefully, if my fingers fast enough 19:42 and so this is what was happening. They record, they record all the episodes and afterwards they typically had like a cocktail hour with everyone and they kind of celebrate and Diana won the thirty two thousand and that she walk away after it. 20:00 no, she had to know, because there's like certain levels you reach words like you're guaranteed. So this is interesting. Actually, maybe this is a difference in the UK version than the American version, because I'm reading this right now and it does say that she got question eleven wrong and walked away with thirty two thousand. So maybe the UK was a little nicer and let you take whatever you had before, because the US if you got a question, you lost it all. That's right. So maybe there's a difference between countries. Maybe the UK was a little bit more forgiving, but 20:30 so the host was talking to her and she was very mad that she got thirty two thousand and he's like he's like thirty two thousand is a lot of money and she's like yeah, but it's not more than my brother, like not more than I'm. I make forty thousand dollars a day. I'm just going to give this a charity. No, she was like she's like it's not more than my brother. I should I should have more than my I should have been able to do better than my brother did and so they kind of started competing, trying to get on the show to beat each other, but neither of them managed to get back on 20:59 But obviously this kind of became a family affair. And then one day, to be exact, on September... Hold on, hold on, hold on. Let me get this date right. Let me pull this up. On September 9th, 2001, Charles is at a taping of the show and he had the fastest finger and he gets on the hot seat. And he's the last one of the day. So he goes through the first five questions. 21:30 And so that would be a question, the question for a thousand dollars. Okay. And he gets that last question right. The question was the Normans who invaded and conquered England in 1066 spoke which language? Is it A, German, B, Norwegian, C, French or D, Danish? What's the question? The Normans who invaded and conquered England in 1066 spoke which language? Is it A, German? 21:59 B Norwegian, C French or D Danish. You can ask Alex if you don't know. Oh, I can phone a friend. Yeah, you can phone a friend. If you don't know, wait actually 22:15 so we're going to phone of lifeline. This is my life line and use a lifeline on this phone, a friend, 22:27 Hi, you've reached out to Grunit. I can't answer this one right now, but if you leave me a message, I will give you a callback. 22:37 he's got his foot on silent as he's straight. That was really funny. All right, I'll try and call someone else. Your call has been forwarded to voicemail. 22:52 Whoopsie! Hey Chase, I'm on a game show right now and I need your help answering a question. Yes. Okay, great. The Normans who invaded and conquered England in 1066 spoke which language? Is it A. German, B. Norwegian, C. French, or D. Danish? I'm gonna go with C. French, Jaren. C. French? 23:20 How confident are you in this? Can you repeat the question or are you out of time? The Normans who invaded and conquered England in 1066. Oh wait, go with Norwegian. Norwegian. Be Norwegian. Okay Regis, we're gonna lock in. Be Norwegian. Hey, what if I just started cussing on the air? Okay, bye! 23:51 Hey, what if I just started gussing out here? 23:59 what's the correct answer? Yeah, that answer was a big fat wrong. I was going to guess German. It was French, it was French, so that was that was the last question that he was asked for the day, the day, the day, because it break 24:21 Yeah, because they break at the end of shoot time and they're like if they're like the middle of a contestant, they just go hey, come back tomorrow. That's so yeah, and so they're like we'll shoot the rest tomorrow. All the producers and everyone were like this guy's not going to make it much further than this. He sucks. I mean he's made it this far, but like he clearly doesn't know what he's doing and then the next day rolls around and he somehow is pulling it out every single answer and it's very strange because he 24:49 doesn't seem like he knows the answer like he see he's going back and forth. I know he's he's I know how I know and then he takes a shot and he's like and it's very much like he's guessing. Oh man, is it a German be Norwegian? I yeah yeah and so he doesn't seem like he knows and then all of a sudden he takes what looks like a guess and he gets it right all the way guess. I'll go with this one yeah and so he goes all the way through 25:16 and he gets to the million dollar question, the million dollar question. We'll see if you know the answer to this. Okay, a number one followed by 100 zeros is known by what name? A, a Google B, a Megatron C, a gigabit or D, a nano mole. Use another phone. Perfect. 25:39 Annie, my manager, I'm on the game show right now and I need your help answering this question. Okay, okay. Regis. Okay. Here's the question. A number one followed by 100 zeros is known by what name? A Google B, a Megatron, C, a gigabit or D, an animal. 26:09 Isn't it a Google? You're going with a Google? Yeah, but like if I answer that is wrong or like, do we lose? We just won a million dollars! The confetti and all this stuff. All right. That was the whole reason I called you. Where'd I get confetti from? All right. Thanks Annie. Wait am I on the podcast? Yeah. 26:45 it's so labored. Am I in the pod a shout out to her for being so helpful though. She just believed you're on a game show. That's what I was saying. That's a good manager. That's a good man. So yeah, so he gets that question. He answers it correctly. I only hire gullible people and he wins speaking of gullible people. You got another one 27:12 Hey, I'm on a game show right now. Okay, so wait, wait, wait, wait, I need your help. Okay, so the Normans who invaded and conquered England in 1066 spoke which language? Is it A, German, B, Norwegian, C, French, or D, Danish? 27:41 invaded from where the Normans invaded England in 1066. Which language did they speak? I'm assuming Norwegian. 28:00 German, Norwegian, French, or Danish. 28:06 You're gonna go German? 28:14 Time is up. It was French. 28:25 Okay, I love you, bye. 28:30 I ain't that no one would answer now all of a sudden. We just keep going back to this crazy. We just keep doing this. I've different people. If Shama calls me back, I'm going to answer. We're going to do the same bit again. Okay, so luxury short he wins yeah immediately after producers pull him aside and they're like hey, 28:51 frisker risk of like hey, we got to check you yeah you yeah. You were really dumb. Yes, yeah, you were really dub and now all of a sudden you want a million dollars come on and so they frisk them. They're looking for a wire. That's where and that was was crazy is that a lot of people don't see this episode. The last question they'd answer it naked. They're like okay, it's time for the million dollar question and they would blur them out and stuff and they just be this naked blurred blob. You know, sitting there in the chair, 29:19 and re and Regis, not wanting them to feel uncomfortable also got naked. Is it for the million dollar question pretty why take your clothes off, take your clothes up? Oh, that's the million dollar do so they they frisk them, don't find a wire, don't find anything yeah the 29:45 lead producer calls a CEO of the company that owns who wants to be a millionaire and it's like hey, you got to come in and you got to come in. Here's what I don't is it as soon as you win any of these games, they are immediately suspe like what did you do like there's no way you won. I don't think so and so they this whole time they felt weird because he, like I said was going through he would go through and he would didn't seem he seemed like he didn't know and there was multiple occasions not 30:15 there was not even a question that he was like. Oh, I know this one for sure. For example, this million dollar question he was like. He was like a Google. He's like I've never heard of a Google before this two thousand one. He's like he's like I've never heard of a Google before he's like. I think it's probably the nano mole and he's like I'm going to lock in a Google and so it's like stuff like that where it's like you were thinking something different. It all a sudden yeah. It just didn't make sense and he also was way too comfortable. 30:44 they were like you seem like you should not be as comfortable in this situation. Okay, yeah, so so there was going solely on body language. Yeah, they were going on by language and the way he was answering the questions and the fact that he just he clearly didn't answer with what his gut was ever and like he would. He would say, oh, I think it was the UK host was the UK host also. No, it was not read just film in. Let me pull it up UK. Who wants to 31:16 I don't think you're going to know who he is. I will Chris Tarent yeah. You know that is yeah. We went to church together. 31:30 I hate that you're just like yeah. We would do a we went to don't think we went to church together. I think we he served me. I'm going to lock in the way with the church together. It's this guy. You recognize him yeah. He just looks like any British dude. It looks like he's got the red skin of someone who is drinking a lot. 31:56 Yeah, so he was the host. So anyways, so they let it they sign in the check, but then they call the bank and they put a hold on the check and then they're like way to the bottom of this and then they said the check. They let him go on his way. They have the cocktail hour. Everyone's like you want a million dollars. It's cool and he's like yeah, it's cool, isn't it? But they said they noted something else. That was weird. They said in the green room right before the cocktail hour, the host walked in on Diane and Charles arguing in the green room and they're like it's strange to argue right after you want a million 32:25 yeah and less. The guy was like you can't have any of this, which is possible for sure, but he's a world gone on there. I just let her know I was divorcing her 32:39 Hey, thanks for checking out this episode. Want to let you know real quick. We have an email list and it's not like a hey, we're going to send you our merch and new episodes all the time. We actually give you updates on these stories as we find out about them. So a lot of our episodes we've done a couple years ago now have updates or that the person the top was about passed away or was caught by the police or whatever updates we can find on episodes that we've done. We want to let you know about it so that our episodes just aren't 33:07 you know out there out of date. It's really fun way to keep learning new information and then every once in a while we let you know about new events coming up or new episodes and it's just a way to help us keep spreading the show. Join that email list. You can text till into six six eight six six or there's a link in the description of this episode or you can just go to till and dot com. It's very easy to join this email list. It's everywhere. It's actually really hard to not join it so 33:39 Yeah, so they they go to the cocktail hour. They go home. She told me that if she won, she was going to divorce me, but then she only won thirty two thousand, so I was like well listen here Charles wife. He also calls her yeah. 33:55 So, uh, they go home. 34:01 the bit Charles's girlfriend from the day we met. I just knew we had a special connection. I have loved every moment of spending time with you. My cute little charlie girl 34:19 and I was wondering if you would do me the honor of becoming my Charles fiance. Will you marry me? I hate you. 34:34 Oh my gosh, okay, so they go home, they go home, whatever the crew, someone else is calling home. The crew stays behind yeah and the crew watches her to their home. Who watches the tapes over like all right, everyone go and they shut the doors real dramatically and they go pull up the footage. They watch the tapes and they notice something yeah. They notice that there are a lot of people coughing at this taping. They're like there is a ton of coughs. 35:02 And long story short, after going through tape after tape after tape, rewatching this over and over and over again, they identified two people in the crowd, a guy by the name of Tecwen Whittock. This is him. And this is what I can only assume is a staged photo. Yeah. 35:25 and like they're like okay, let's get one of you just normal, just normal, and then let's get one of you doing your thing that you do with the thing you do and then Diane, his wife, coughing a lot in the crowd, and so they start to notice that what is happening a cough right after the right answer. Yeah, as he goes through and he would say each goes. I don't know if it's a Google, yep, I know yeah feeling like it's a Google 35:51 Yeah, and he would go through every answer and he'd be like, oh yeah, he's like, it could be German, but then again, you know, it could be Norwegian. Honestly, French is possible. Yeah, and that's what you would do for every question. And the host was getting annoyed. The host was like, this is how the questions work. It could be any of the options we gave you. Yes, that's right. It could be any of them. That's... 36:13 and so what they would cough after the correct answer and his husband's pretty dumb and then he would put in the answer. So that's why he seemed to be like. Oh, I don't think it's a google and then he goes through all of them and then he come back and be like I'm walking in google because he heard someone cough during that the host in recounting. This was like honestly he's like he's like it was a pretty loud. It's a pretty loud crowd like people cough people sneeze like in the crowd he's like and then you're going through the show. People are cheering. He's like you don't recognize any of that in the moment. 36:40 And he's like, so I never thought anything of it. I never thought anything was weird. But obviously our engineers went back. When you listen back and you go, oh, wait, hold on. And so the next day, Charles gets a call and it's the producer and he says, hey, I'm just going to cut right to the chase. He said, we put a hole in that check. That's not going to go through. And we phoned the police. He said, we think that there is something not too kosher about your show that we taped last night. And I want to let you know it's not going to air and this is getting. 37:09 going to go into investigation and he's like he's like oh well, obviously that's pretty unfortunate and I refute any of these claims. Oh well, I mean so you're saying that we're either going to get arrested or the money's going to go through or the show's not going to air or he's like yes, yeah, either you're going to be a millionaire or you're not getting away with it. 37:41 So you're saying we're going to be a millionaire. Are you saying we're going to be a prisoner? Dang it, it's not looking good Diane. So the three of them Charles, Diane and Tec when I don't know what that name is, but they go on to trial a year later. It's a four week long trial long for Quinn. It's long for a 38:09 it's a f you should start going by timothy just to be like i'm timothy. It's long for they go under a four week long trial and long story short, they're found guilty. The charge that they're found guilty of is very strange and the uk. They wear those wigs and stuff in court. It's so weird. It's so wild to have someone go guilty while they're 38:34 cosplaying a curly haired person. You know yeah, their conviction was procuring the execution of a valuable security by deception is the charge, which between the three of them. The total like fine that they got was a hundred and fifteen pounds and then they also really, because there was like okay. Sorry, who's paid sixty bucks and get done with it 39:02 well, that's a hundred or a hundred fifteen thousand. I'm oh sorry, I was like a thousand pounds. Yeah, he was at sixty bucks. I was like what a hundred fifty thousand pounds and then Whittick was sentenced to twelve months in prison and oh god Diane and Charles were sentenced to eighteen months in prison for their fraud. I guess so apparently this is a huge deal. Yeah, I feel that really cracked out. Sorry, I was just joking. Yeah, yeah, they really know pretty hard in prison and they ended up with face tattoos in their 39:31 yeah they're in there for life now because of what they've done on the other side, and so yeah it was a huge deal because once you spend eighteen months in jail, actually life gets easier in jail than it is in the outside. It's hard to assimilate back into the culture, especially in the UK made up world they live in, so they they're like well, those live in this prison forever. Honestly, we get three three three meals in a bed, you know and and yeah and I don't have to be next to Charles anymore. Golly be married to him was so awful and to win all this money to get away from him. 39:58 Well, it's ironic you say that because it was so he worked for the army and he was actually removed from service because of this this conviction. So he lost his job, obviously did prison time and then later they would get out, but they would later have to file for bankruptcy because of all the fines that they had to eat and they had a hard time finding work after this and they had three daughters that got bullied pretty relentlessly because their parents were known as the cheaters of who wants to be a millionaire. 40:27 which is pretty brutal. It sucks to yeah and so yeah. They any time you're a kid and you're just taking a test in class. All the kids in class are like yeah speaking of tick one tick one here wittak. He actually is a very similar thing. His kids got bullied. He had a lot of financial issues, hard time getting work after this right whole scandal broke. He actually had to go on and trademark his last name wittak. 40:56 because there was a cough medicine that was trying to brand it as when it which is kind of wild, kind of wild, especially in two thousand one yeah, oh brutal brutal, but here's the thing. These people were connected to a larger group known as the consortium. I brought them up in the beginning. We're just now getting back around to them because we've called so many friends. We phone so many friends today, 41:24 The consortium was founded by two main individuals, Patty Spooner and Keith Burgess. You'll notice something about Patty Spooner. He's been on who wants to be a millionaire a lot. Okay, and Patty is the only person and who wants to be a millionaire history to appear on the US, the UK and the Irish version of who wants to be a millionaire. 41:52 and win. He won two hundred fifty thousand dollars on the US two hundred fifty thousand dollars on the UK and a thousand dollars on the Irish one. Apparently that was a little harder. That one's a little harder. The accent that makes it hard to yeah yeah. I don't know. Can you ask that again? It's like I don't know. I don't know what you call a letter C here. I can actually I could win this whole thing. I could win this, but I don't talk is so unbearable. It's not worth two hundred and forty nine thousand be around this. Yeah, 42:21 So he got really good at getting on this show and he got pretty good at the show in general fast, so he and his friend who he met by the name of Keith Burgess. We saw Keith Keith also has been on the show. He only made it into the hot seat once, but he has been in the set multiple times and so they made a connection on the show because obviously Patty made it to the hot seat a bunch, but he's been in the show way more than that because you have sure and so him and Keith 42:50 hit it off. They would come friends, yeah, and he's fingers is fast and they start a business together and they call it the consortium and the service they provide is for a percentage of your winnings. They will get you on who wants to be a millionaire is a service that they provide and they actually provided this service to Charles Ingram and his wife, Diana. How do they get you on? So what they did is they created a replica of that module to train you for the fast finger so that way you could 43:19 get your fingers fast. And so that was step one. They trained your fingers to get you a fast finger on those questions. They helped you with the type of questions that you would be asked for that fast finger. So you'd be prepared for that. So they helped you study and prepare because they knew the kind of questions that would be asked. And then what they did is they had a whole strategy to get you on the show. And this is pretty clever. What they would do is they would create a recording of your voice to apply to the show. And they then would 43:49 call in repeatedly and repeatedly run this recording to apply you for the show. And they said it was a volume game. The more you got the calls in, the higher the odds that they would actually qualify you and get you in. And then when the call back came, what they would do is they obviously, they were calling from their own company phones, not from that person's phone. So when the call back came, they would say, oh, they're not home right now. Can I call you back when they come home? And they'd say, sure. 44:16 And so then they drive across town to their house, they'd get them on the phone, and they would have a spread of encyclopedias because they figured out there was one set of data that they gathered for these questions, and it was the same set of questions that they just cycled through. And so they had like encyclopedias with all these ear-tagged points for all the different questions, they labeled them. And so then the person would ask the question, they'd flip it, and they'd say, okay, tell them this number. And then they would tell them that number, and so then they'd get cleared to go on the show. 44:44 and then it was a matter of training your finger to get you through the fast finger and they did this with fifteen hundred clients, fifteen hundred from two thousand two thousand to two thousand seven. The only reason they stopped is because in two thousand seven, who wants to be a millionaire stopped allowing you to call back from that call and they said it totally fell apart when they did that because we couldn't be with them twenty four seven and so it fell apart at that point. But 45:14 from two thousand to two thousand seven the consortium these two they from their percentage that they took. They made over five million pounds from taking percentages and getting people on the show. They got over five hundred people onto the show and they got. I think it was seventy five into the hot seat across the US, UK and the Irish thing. They have seventy five people. Yeah, here's here's here's the wild. This the wildest part they was our percentage of winnings 45:43 No, no, like I don't know what the percentage was that they would take, but here's here's the craziest part. They would then set up to be your friend that you would phone and they had this safe house and they had a person that would be your friend yeah, and then they had a stack of encyclopedias on the floor and four people that would flip through the encyclopedias. They had one person on Google 46:06 and then they had a culture expert, a history expert, they had experts in all these different categories in the room. There was like twenty people in this room. So I'm saying like how and so how is this profitable at that point? So that person would answer the phone, they'd mute it and then the person who knew would give them the answer. They'd unmute it and they'd say okay. I think it's this and it was that was just an actor who would just act like they were their friend in the phone, a friend segment and they did this for seven years. 46:36 and here's the thing about it. They never got in trouble because everything they were doing was perfectly legal. They were not cheating in any way. Like when you phone a friend, your friends allowed to look it up. Your friends allowed to have as many other friends there and talk to all the other friends. Yeah, it's just the cheating during the game yeah that got Charles and so because they weren't actually cheating in the game. They were just taking advantage of the application process and training you to do better in the game right. They were perfectly legal. They were essentially 47:04 like who wants to be a millionaire trainers, and so they did this whole thing and in and twenty twenty one they wrote a book called quiz and they outlined how they did it and how they got all these different people. I would I wish they would have paid some of their winnings to get an actual designer for the book looks really bad, telling the story of how they did it and this got adapted in that shed in the back where they took the calls. What is that like 47:33 but yeah they they this book they use they use that as the basis to make a tv show that ran in the uk a couple years ago. He used filter stories picture. Yeah he did yeah. You got to make that skin look good. Yeah he used like the face to nap on that yeah, huh, not wild, but they were completely legal. Whatever Charles did 47:56 questionable. He in an interview they asked him and he's like, he's like, people say that this was a victimless time, but it wasn't. He said, we were the victims. 48:06 We were the victims because we went to J. Well, he maintains his innocence to this day. He said he said people in the crowd were coughing. He said it had nothing to do and and Tequin and his defense in trial. He said I have a condition. He's like I've just coughed my entire life. I have an incessant cough and the reason they got him on that claim was he didn't cough once during the trial. I start saying what 48:36 Are you dumb? I used to coughed in this trial bro. If that was your thing, if that was the thing that you cough a lot cough more, we should be criminals were way smarter than they are yeah yeah, so they all think though yeah. That's what every criminal things I could do that better than them yeah. Speaking of criminals, 49:00 I'm solving a crime. Oh, we're going with this and if you're in our discord, you know about this and you could help solve this crime. So I that's how I'm going to get for now. Okay, I love that anyway. Beautiful yeah, so that's the story of the consortium, an incredible organization that go a lot of people and who wants to be a millionaire and then a guy who used that to go to prison instead 49:29 that's wild yeah yeah it's nuts and the music from who wants to be a millionaire Ireland was just fiddles yeah yeah. 49:42 Hey, thanks for checking out this episode. If you like it, there's another one, Michael Larson. He did a very similar scheme on a show called Press Your Luck, but it was like older and it was also in the US. So if you've got a problem with the UK, you might like this one a little bit better. And also, if you love this show, you want to see next week's episode right now, you can become a Patreon supporter. You can do that at tilland.com slash support. That's the best way to help this show, make sure it keeps happening. And episodes happen until long after we die. We're not going to let it end. 50:11 I hate this guy so much. But anyways, thanks for checking out our show. We'll see you next week on Till It Podcast.