9 ms·

Claim for a missing tooth

358 points by lukecarr 2y ago

matteason 2y ago
I made this, thanks for sharing it! Backstory is here: https://bsky.app/profile/seamas.bsky.social/post/3lkigjm7sk222 https://bsky.app/profile/seamas.bsky.social/post/3lkigjm7sk2... ...and here: https://bsky.app/profile/matteason.me/post/3lknf6qfsek2p https://bsky.app/profile/matteason.me/post/3lknf6qfsek2p tl;dr Séamas O'Reilly wrote a column in The Observer about faking a government reimbursement form for his son, who had swallowed a tooth and was worried about whether the Tooth Fairy would pay up if the tooth couldn't be put under his pillow. He published the form as a PDF (linked from the homepage) and I turned it into a digital service Someone on Bluesky told me about our first successfully-fooled child yesterday: "I can confirm that form TF-230 worked flawlessly, and my cynical, streetwise 8-year-old son was utterly baffled by finding an envelope with his application form and a handful of coins in the letterbox this afternoon."
- lukecarr 2y ago
  Awesome, great job on the site! I saw it on the Slack, and was surprised at the level of detail in some of the pages like the tooth selection screen :D It also got a good chuckle from those I shared it with at work! :)
- avs733 2y ago
  My hope, and the hope of the six other parent friends I just sent this to, is that this will still be up in a few years. Made my and several friends evenings. Thanks.
thih9 2y ago
I like that you can select a wisdom tooth too. Adults having their wisdom teeth pulled out should absolutely use that website to file a claim.
joshdavham 2y ago
This is really creative! Thanks for sharing!
silisili 2y ago
Neat idea! This brings back an embarrassing memory from childhood. Playing football in the yard, a careless neighborhood kid accidentally knocked two of my baby teeth out. I remember scouring the grass for them to no avail, then getting in a rage about how I wouldn't get tooth fairy money, so punched the boy, and he started crying and ran home. I don't even remember who it was, but to this day feel bad about that. When I got home, my parents said it's no problem, just write a letter explaining what happened and the tooth fairy will understand. And that worked. Being a deviant, I decided to test it a few days later with another letter in secret, to no avail. And that was my first inclination this whole thing wasn't real.
- jahsome 2y ago
  I think maybe you were using 'deviant' in a tongue and cheek way, but I think the way kids are naturally inclined to limit test and push boundaries in service of learning more about the world is among the most beautiful things in human existence. Hopefully that's not the part of thr story you feel embarrassed about.
- like_any_other 2y ago
  The hubris in thinking the Tooth Fairy of all beings couldn't tell you didn't have any extra teeth missing...
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  When I was a kid, I also tried the "small stone" trick under my pillow. (Of course, I announced it to my parents: "I'm going to see what happens if...") I think I got Monopoly money instead of real money. Still, it didn't dent my faith the Tooth Fairy.
- lupire 2y ago
  I don't know why you'd think that a fairy, with the power to fetch teeth from under your pillow and deposit payment undetected, and the power to monitor for for written letters that don't even emit denta particles to scan for, would lack a fraud unit.
theginger 2y ago
How timely is this. Just minutes ago my child handed me a tooth to go under their pillow, then I find this.
Willingham 2y ago
Absolutely love the work done here! Only change I would make is change "rubber" to "eraser" to help more English speaking children understand the content (:
- LeoPanthera 2y ago
  Since it's a spoof of gov.uk, "rubber" is correct!
  - matteason 2y ago
    Oh god I knew this would be contentious I've just changed it to 'eraser' but actually I should make it conditional on your navigator.language...
    - mbreese 2y ago
      I applaud your commitment to this bit. Thank you for making the world a nicer place.
- rob_c 2y ago
  Given the source of truth is British English, the maths says no.
  - cpfohl 2y ago
    Ooh! Perfect opportunity to ask a question I’ve definitely not spent an inordinate amount of time wondering about without bothering to look for an answer! Is maths in British English plural? Like, should that be “the maths say”?
    - matteason 2y ago
      It's always "maths" not "math" but we'd always say "the maths says" and I've never questioned it until right now
TZubiri 2y ago
Very creative and well executed. When I was like 6 a friend choked me and I swallowed my tooth. I was very sad because the tooth fairy ("ratón perez") would not pay me :( But thankfully I found a note notifying me that they found my tooth and reimbursing me :) So I see where the idea came from, but I wouldn't ever had imagined this bureocratic twist
- egypturnash 2y ago
  This note has horrifying implications. Did the tooth fairy go spelunking in your stomach and/or intestine? Are they sieving your sewer pipes for teeth just in case? They must really want those teeth bad.
  - CoastalCoder 2y ago
    It's less nefarious than that. Every tooth contains a government-installed tracker.
    - egypturnash 2y ago
      That's no more comforting to imagine. Possibly less so.
matteason 2y ago
Really glad everyone's enjoying this! If anyone does use it with their kids: a) There's a sneaky secret admin page linked at the bottom ('Change settings') where you can set a price-per-tooth and add a custom question for them to answer: https://tf230.matteason.co.uk/admin https://tf230.matteason.co.uk/admin b) Please send me a copy of their answers, I'd love to see their drawings! There's a download link on the confirmation page and you can email me at the bottom of the same page. Actually this goes for adults' drawings too because a few people have sent me theirs and they're hilarious
- Karellen 2y ago
  Can't believe no-one else has made a comment about how great the form id "230" (tooth-hurty) is, yet. Bravo.
  - matteason 2y ago
    Séamas gets the credit for that one :) https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/mar/16/will-the-tooth-fairy-pay-up-if-the-tooth-has-been-swallowed https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/mar/16/will-th...
  - pavel_lishin 2y ago
    I hope that Peter, Caitlin and Leslie aren't reading this - if you are, STOP IT. One of the minor villains in my D&D campaign is a literal living nightmare - one of three. Each one is named after a time of night when they appear, and this one is named 2:30 - because he really likes the nightmare where your teeth all fall out. He's the spookiest one of them all, but the least dangerous.
- salviati 2y ago
  This is very nice! Is it open sourced by any chance? Most kids in the world don't speak English, and it would be nice to be able to contribute translations. In any case, nice job and thanks for sharing!
  - matteason 2y ago
krupan 2y ago
I love "wee" for a color choice, lol!
rcambrj 2y ago
This is remarkably adorable :) Check the tooth colours in dark mode though, "white" is very much not white (it's black).
- matteason 2y ago
  Ah how have you set dark mode? I haven't got a dark theme via prefers-color-scheme or anything so whatever is setting it might just be brute-forcing white to black or something. I'll fix it if I can!
  - notpushkin 2y ago
    I suppose they’re using https://darkreader.org/ https://darkreader.org/ or something like that! If you implement dark mode yourself, you can add `<meta name="darkreader-lock" />` to prevent Dark Reader from triggering.
benwerd 2y ago
A little context for those who weren't aware: tooth-stealing ferrets are an ongoing, serious problem in Britain.
- matteason 2y ago
  And not a single politician is addressing it. Shameful.
gwern 2y ago
Suggestion: change the 'missing teeth' form line to include an ordinal count or something. I was surprised to learn when filing my form that I had "Missing teeth: 30"!
amluto 2y ago
I’m confused. Traditionally, the Tooth Fairy pays for baby teeth, but the form shows numbering for permanent teeth. Should there perhaps be a way to indicate the type of tooth and a chart showing numbering for baby teeth?
- xico 2y ago
  There are some many kids with mesiodens and such that the diagram should also have little weirdly shaped bumps all around also. Also there shouldn't be an age limit for tooth fairies! I'm sure someone's great grandma would love the chocolate!
abalaji 2y ago
Gotta start 'em young on dealing with government bureaucracy.
- blatantly 2y ago
  If it doesn't cost $200 of your time to claim $12, what is government for?
pavel_lishin 2y ago
This is very cool. My daughter was very worried that she might lose her tooth and swallow it, so I told her that the sewer mermaids have an agreement with the tooth fairy, and they'd deliver the tooth to her, and then she would deliver the money. My child didn't buy it, but maybe ya'll's will be more believing :p
- ocdtrekkie 2y ago
  Sewer mermaids does strain credibility a bit, you have to admit. The human-scale rabbit which delivers gifts in eggs is far more credible.
  - pavel_lishin 2y ago
    Funnily enough, just 30 minutes ago, my child accused me of lying to her about the Easter Bunny.
  - hnbad 2y ago
    Oh, I'd like you to know that there is (internationally at least - I know the US likes its anthros) very intense debate around the issue whether the Easter Bunny is a human-sized rabbit or just a very fast rabbit-sized rabbit strong enough to lift a basket. I've also at several times heard kids argue that there's more than one rabbit involved or that the Easter Bunny is assisted by his family. There's plenty of prior art depicting rabbit-sized Easter bunnies painting and loading eggs onto baskets and most kids have heard of the idea of Santa Claus having a workshop staffed by elves so I guess it's no big leap (or hop?) to deduct that there must be more than just one bunny involved, although you can argue about the relative time cost of hiding presents in multiple places compared to having to sneak into a building.
    - xico 2y ago
      Just for the confusion, in France, Belgium and areas around, it's bells, flying back from Rome, that bring chocolate to the children. The bells on churches fly there and are silent for some time and then come back on Easter with the sweets.
blatantly 2y ago
Not fooled! The site is too fast and didn't require 16 factor auth to get started. It also didn't ask me for 5 different government identifiers. Nice try tho.
NooneAtAll3 2y ago
okay, I got fooled (by the coat of arms, primarily) I truly thought UK gov did a joke to support children...
ThePowerOfFuet 2y ago
Looks super cute, but doesn't seem to work in Firefox on Android with uBlock Origin apparently only blocking CF Insights (clicking the big green button does nothing).
ascorbic 2y ago
Is it bad that I was immediately jarred by the fact it doesn't use Transport Sans? Of course that is actually correct according to the GDS rules, because it's not on a service.gov.uk subdomain. [1] https://design-system.service.gov.uk/styles/typeface/ https://design-system.service.gov.uk/styles/typeface/
- skavi 2y ago
  if i had to hazard a guess, that’s probably the exact response the design system is hoping for
  - donalhunt 2y ago
    Should also incorporate "mind the gap" some how...
- lupire 2y ago
  Does the UK government have any enforce power to dissuade unofficial use?
  - matteason 2y ago
    It's as much a licensing issue as anything I think. GOV.UK uses 'GDS Transport', which is a custom cut of New Transport, a commercially-available font [0] which is available for the low, low price of £10k per weight for unlimited impressions. I've never seen any enforcement though (doesn't mean it doesn't happen) and it's pretty common for services not on *.service.gov.uk to end up using it anyway [0] http://www.newtransport.co.uk/ http://www.newtransport.co.uk/
noneeeed 2y ago
I love how closely this matches how GDS built flows work, not just the visuals. The careful step by step pacing, the direct wording, it's all absolutely spot on. Perfect.
- matteason 2y ago
  Thank you! I design GOV.UK (and GOV.UK-adjacent) services at work so this was a bit of a busman's holiday
  - noneeeed 2y ago
    Aha, I did wonder. The language was just so spot on. Keep up the excellent work.
Lio 2y ago
Oh god, I just put in a made up claim for a tooth lost in Timbuktooth, just to test the system and then I saw this... Knowingly making a false claim is a criminal offence under Section 17B(2) of the Teeth Finance & Renewal Act (1978) and you may be prosecuted, jailed, or blasted into space. What do I do? What do I do?
- matteason 2y ago
  Okay, calm down, let's take this slowly. First things first: do you already own a spacesuit?
  - Lio 2y ago
    Yes! They were on special offer in the centre isle of our local Lidl last week. Between the angle grinder and trombone section.
    - b3lvedere 2y ago
      Thank you for making my day just a little bit better. Excuse me while i clean my desk before the coffee stains ruin it. :)
      - Lio 2y ago
        This comment has brough me much joy! ...and, er, sorry about your desk. :D
sam_goody 2y ago
One day short of April's fools! Or is it a timezone thing (The sun doesn't set over English empire, so no point waiting for tomorrow)? Or, is this a real Government website and I am just being cynical?
p3rls 2y ago
It's nice to see people treating real websites as something beyond SEO farms for users

358 points by lukecarr 2y ago

I made this, thanks for sharing it! Backstory is here: https://bsky.app/profile/seamas.bsky.social/post/3lkigjm7sk222 https://bsky.app/profile/seamas.bsky.social/post/3lkigjm7sk2... ...and here: https://bsky.app/profile/matteason.me/post/3lknf6qfsek2p https://bsky.app/profile/matteason.me/post/3lknf6qfsek2p tl;dr Séamas O'Reilly wrote a column in The Observer about faking a government reimbursement form for his son, who had swallowed a tooth and was worried about whether the Tooth Fairy would pay up if the tooth couldn't be put under his pillow. He published the form as a PDF (linked from the homepage) and I turned it into a digital service Someone on Bluesky told me about our first successfully-fooled child yesterday: "I can confirm that form TF-230 worked flawlessly, and my cynical, streetwise 8-year-old son was utterly baffled by finding an envelope with his application form and a handful of coins in the letterbox this afternoon."

lukecarr 2y ago
Awesome, great job on the site! I saw it on the Slack, and was surprised at the level of detail in some of the pages like the tooth selection screen :D It also got a good chuckle from those I shared it with at work! :)
avs733 2y ago
My hope, and the hope of the six other parent friends I just sent this to, is that this will still be up in a few years. Made my and several friends evenings. Thanks.

thih9 2y ago

I like that you can select a wisdom tooth too. Adults having their wisdom teeth pulled out should absolutely use that website to file a claim.

joshdavham 2y ago

This is really creative! Thanks for sharing!

silisili 2y ago

Neat idea! This brings back an embarrassing memory from childhood. Playing football in the yard, a careless neighborhood kid accidentally knocked two of my baby teeth out. I remember scouring the grass for them to no avail, then getting in a rage about how I wouldn't get tooth fairy money, so punched the boy, and he started crying and ran home. I don't even remember who it was, but to this day feel bad about that. When I got home, my parents said it's no problem, just write a letter explaining what happened and the tooth fairy will understand. And that worked. Being a deviant, I decided to test it a few days later with another letter in secret, to no avail. And that was my first inclination this whole thing wasn't real.

jahsome 2y ago
I think maybe you were using 'deviant' in a tongue and cheek way, but I think the way kids are naturally inclined to limit test and push boundaries in service of learning more about the world is among the most beautiful things in human existence. Hopefully that's not the part of thr story you feel embarrassed about.
like_any_other 2y ago
The hubris in thinking the Tooth Fairy of all beings couldn't tell you didn't have any extra teeth missing...
throwaway2037 2y ago
When I was a kid, I also tried the "small stone" trick under my pillow. (Of course, I announced it to my parents: "I'm going to see what happens if...") I think I got Monopoly money instead of real money. Still, it didn't dent my faith the Tooth Fairy.
lupire 2y ago
I don't know why you'd think that a fairy, with the power to fetch teeth from under your pillow and deposit payment undetected, and the power to monitor for for written letters that don't even emit denta particles to scan for, would lack a fraud unit.

theginger 2y ago

How timely is this. Just minutes ago my child handed me a tooth to go under their pillow, then I find this.

Willingham 2y ago

Absolutely love the work done here! Only change I would make is change "rubber" to "eraser" to help more English speaking children understand the content (:

LeoPanthera 2y ago
Since it's a spoof of gov.uk, "rubber" is correct!
- matteason 2y ago
  Oh god I knew this would be contentious I've just changed it to 'eraser' but actually I should make it conditional on your navigator.language...
  - mbreese 2y ago
    I applaud your commitment to this bit. Thank you for making the world a nicer place.
rob_c 2y ago
Given the source of truth is British English, the maths says no.
- cpfohl 2y ago
  Ooh! Perfect opportunity to ask a question I’ve definitely not spent an inordinate amount of time wondering about without bothering to look for an answer! Is maths in British English plural? Like, should that be “the maths say”?
  - matteason 2y ago
    It's always "maths" not "math" but we'd always say "the maths says" and I've never questioned it until right now

TZubiri 2y ago

Very creative and well executed. When I was like 6 a friend choked me and I swallowed my tooth. I was very sad because the tooth fairy ("ratón perez") would not pay me :( But thankfully I found a note notifying me that they found my tooth and reimbursing me :) So I see where the idea came from, but I wouldn't ever had imagined this bureocratic twist

egypturnash 2y ago
This note has horrifying implications. Did the tooth fairy go spelunking in your stomach and/or intestine? Are they sieving your sewer pipes for teeth just in case? They must really want those teeth bad.
- CoastalCoder 2y ago
  It's less nefarious than that. Every tooth contains a government-installed tracker.
  - egypturnash 2y ago
    That's no more comforting to imagine. Possibly less so.

matteason 2y ago

Really glad everyone's enjoying this! If anyone does use it with their kids: a) There's a sneaky secret admin page linked at the bottom ('Change settings') where you can set a price-per-tooth and add a custom question for them to answer: https://tf230.matteason.co.uk/admin https://tf230.matteason.co.uk/admin b) Please send me a copy of their answers, I'd love to see their drawings! There's a download link on the confirmation page and you can email me at the bottom of the same page. Actually this goes for adults' drawings too because a few people have sent me theirs and they're hilarious

Karellen 2y ago
Can't believe no-one else has made a comment about how great the form id "230" (tooth-hurty) is, yet. Bravo.
- matteason 2y ago
  Séamas gets the credit for that one :) https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/mar/16/will-the-tooth-fairy-pay-up-if-the-tooth-has-been-swallowed https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/mar/16/will-th...
- pavel_lishin 2y ago
  I hope that Peter, Caitlin and Leslie aren't reading this - if you are, STOP IT. One of the minor villains in my D&D campaign is a literal living nightmare - one of three. Each one is named after a time of night when they appear, and this one is named 2:30 - because he really likes the nightmare where your teeth all fall out. He's the spookiest one of them all, but the least dangerous.
salviati 2y ago
This is very nice! Is it open sourced by any chance? Most kids in the world don't speak English, and it would be nice to be able to contribute translations. In any case, nice job and thanks for sharing!
- matteason 2y ago

krupan 2y ago

I love "wee" for a color choice, lol!

rcambrj 2y ago

This is remarkably adorable :) Check the tooth colours in dark mode though, "white" is very much not white (it's black).

matteason 2y ago
Ah how have you set dark mode? I haven't got a dark theme via prefers-color-scheme or anything so whatever is setting it might just be brute-forcing white to black or something. I'll fix it if I can!
- notpushkin 2y ago
  I suppose they’re using https://darkreader.org/ https://darkreader.org/ or something like that! If you implement dark mode yourself, you can add `<meta name="darkreader-lock" />` to prevent Dark Reader from triggering.

benwerd 2y ago

A little context for those who weren't aware: tooth-stealing ferrets are an ongoing, serious problem in Britain.

matteason 2y ago
And not a single politician is addressing it. Shameful.

gwern 2y ago

Suggestion: change the 'missing teeth' form line to include an ordinal count or something. I was surprised to learn when filing my form that I had "Missing teeth: 30"!

amluto 2y ago

I’m confused. Traditionally, the Tooth Fairy pays for baby teeth, but the form shows numbering for permanent teeth. Should there perhaps be a way to indicate the type of tooth and a chart showing numbering for baby teeth?

xico 2y ago
There are some many kids with mesiodens and such that the diagram should also have little weirdly shaped bumps all around also. Also there shouldn't be an age limit for tooth fairies! I'm sure someone's great grandma would love the chocolate!

abalaji 2y ago

Gotta start 'em young on dealing with government bureaucracy.

blatantly 2y ago
If it doesn't cost $200 of your time to claim $12, what is government for?

pavel_lishin 2y ago

This is very cool. My daughter was very worried that she might lose her tooth and swallow it, so I told her that the sewer mermaids have an agreement with the tooth fairy, and they'd deliver the tooth to her, and then she would deliver the money. My child didn't buy it, but maybe ya'll's will be more believing :p

ocdtrekkie 2y ago
Sewer mermaids does strain credibility a bit, you have to admit. The human-scale rabbit which delivers gifts in eggs is far more credible.
- pavel_lishin 2y ago
  Funnily enough, just 30 minutes ago, my child accused me of lying to her about the Easter Bunny.
- hnbad 2y ago
  Oh, I'd like you to know that there is (internationally at least - I know the US likes its anthros) very intense debate around the issue whether the Easter Bunny is a human-sized rabbit or just a very fast rabbit-sized rabbit strong enough to lift a basket. I've also at several times heard kids argue that there's more than one rabbit involved or that the Easter Bunny is assisted by his family. There's plenty of prior art depicting rabbit-sized Easter bunnies painting and loading eggs onto baskets and most kids have heard of the idea of Santa Claus having a workshop staffed by elves so I guess it's no big leap (or hop?) to deduct that there must be more than just one bunny involved, although you can argue about the relative time cost of hiding presents in multiple places compared to having to sneak into a building.
  - xico 2y ago
    Just for the confusion, in France, Belgium and areas around, it's bells, flying back from Rome, that bring chocolate to the children. The bells on churches fly there and are silent for some time and then come back on Easter with the sweets.

blatantly 2y ago

Not fooled! The site is too fast and didn't require 16 factor auth to get started. It also didn't ask me for 5 different government identifiers. Nice try tho.

NooneAtAll3 2y ago

okay, I got fooled (by the coat of arms, primarily) I truly thought UK gov did a joke to support children...

ThePowerOfFuet 2y ago

Looks super cute, but doesn't seem to work in Firefox on Android with uBlock Origin apparently only blocking CF Insights (clicking the big green button does nothing).

ascorbic 2y ago

Is it bad that I was immediately jarred by the fact it doesn't use Transport Sans? Of course that is actually correct according to the GDS rules, because it's not on a service.gov.uk subdomain. [1] https://design-system.service.gov.uk/styles/typeface/ https://design-system.service.gov.uk/styles/typeface/

skavi 2y ago
if i had to hazard a guess, that’s probably the exact response the design system is hoping for
- donalhunt 2y ago
  Should also incorporate "mind the gap" some how...
lupire 2y ago
Does the UK government have any enforce power to dissuade unofficial use?
- matteason 2y ago
  It's as much a licensing issue as anything I think. GOV.UK uses 'GDS Transport', which is a custom cut of New Transport, a commercially-available font [0] which is available for the low, low price of £10k per weight for unlimited impressions. I've never seen any enforcement though (doesn't mean it doesn't happen) and it's pretty common for services not on *.service.gov.uk to end up using it anyway [0] http://www.newtransport.co.uk/ http://www.newtransport.co.uk/

noneeeed 2y ago

I love how closely this matches how GDS built flows work, not just the visuals. The careful step by step pacing, the direct wording, it's all absolutely spot on. Perfect.

matteason 2y ago
Thank you! I design GOV.UK (and GOV.UK-adjacent) services at work so this was a bit of a busman's holiday
- noneeeed 2y ago
  Aha, I did wonder. The language was just so spot on. Keep up the excellent work.

Lio 2y ago

Oh god, I just put in a made up claim for a tooth lost in Timbuktooth, just to test the system and then I saw this... Knowingly making a false claim is a criminal offence under Section 17B(2) of the Teeth Finance & Renewal Act (1978) and you may be prosecuted, jailed, or blasted into space. What do I do? What do I do?

matteason 2y ago
Okay, calm down, let's take this slowly. First things first: do you already own a spacesuit?
- Lio 2y ago
  Yes! They were on special offer in the centre isle of our local Lidl last week. Between the angle grinder and trombone section.
  - b3lvedere 2y ago
    Thank you for making my day just a little bit better. Excuse me while i clean my desk before the coffee stains ruin it. :)
    - Lio 2y ago
      This comment has brough me much joy! ...and, er, sorry about your desk. :D

sam_goody 2y ago

One day short of April's fools! Or is it a timezone thing (The sun doesn't set over English empire, so no point waiting for tomorrow)? Or, is this a real Government website and I am just being cynical?

p3rls 2y ago

It's nice to see people treating real websites as something beyond SEO farms for users