Claim for a missing tooth

[matteason]

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

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]

Can't believe no-one else has made a comment about how great the form id "230" (tooth-hurty) is, yet. Bravo.

[lupire]

Is citizenship required for submitting a claim, as the instructions imply?

Also, the tooth chart is an adult chart (32 teeth), not a child chart (24 teeth).

[salviati]

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!

[silisili]

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.

[throwaway2037]

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.

[like_any_other]

The hubris in thinking the Tooth Fairy of all beings couldn't tell you didn't have any extra teeth missing...

[jahsome]

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.

[lupire]

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.

[Lio]

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]

Okay, calm down, let's take this slowly. First things first: do you already own a spacesuit?

[thih9]

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.

[amluto]

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]

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!

[pavel_lishin]

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]

Sewer mermaids does strain credibility a bit, you have to admit. The human-scale rabbit which delivers gifts in eggs is far more credible.

[willvarfar]

I just went through the claim process and it explains that the sewer rats will be notified if you swallowed a tooth

[ascorbic]

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/

[skavi]

if i had to hazard a guess, that’s probably the exact response the design system is hoping for

[lupire]

Does the UK government have any enforce power to dissuade unofficial use?

[benwerd]

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

[matteason]

And not a single politician is addressing it. Shameful.

[gwern]

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"!

[blatantly]

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.

[noneeeed]

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]

Thank you! I design GOV.UK (and GOV.UK-adjacent) services at work so this was a bit of a busman's holiday

[TZubiri]

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]

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.

[matteason]

I made this, thanks for sharing it!

Backstory is here: https://bsky.app/profile/seamas.bsky.social/post/3lkigjm7sk2...

...and here: 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]

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]

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.

[Willingham]

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]

Since it's a spoof of gov.uk, "rubber" is correct!

[rob_c]

Given the source of truth is British English, the maths says no.

[chupasaurus]

Even in Soviet textbooks for English in elementary schools (which are garbage by any standard) both variants were presented (:

[harripa]

As has already been pointed rubber is common British English, but perhaps more interestingly the etymology of name of the substance comes from this usage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eraser#History

[rcambrj]

This is remarkably adorable :)

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

[matteason]

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!

[theginger]

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

[p3rls]

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

[NooneAtAll3]

okay, I got fooled (by the coat of arms, primarily)

I truly thought UK gov did a joke to support children...

[sam_goody]

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?

[abalaji]

Gotta start 'em young on dealing with government bureaucracy.

[blatantly]

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

[ThePowerOfFuet]

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).

[joshdavham]

This is really creative! Thanks for sharing!

[krupan]

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