As we speak, there’s a commercial running on TV for one of those AutoGo things (a sort of ‘scooter’ for the handicapped). They say they’ll give away one AutoGo each month, blah, blah, blah.
So my question is: Is any entity holding Corporate America’s feet to the fire to make sure their contests are conducted fairly, and the awards are made, fairly and impartially?
Some of you will recall how New York state deliberately prevented any winners in their statewide lottery over a considerable period of time, and I doubt that the culprit was ever hauled into court, much less went to jail. Apparently, the state was so broke, they had to steal from the lottery participants. And for that kind of money, we’re talking felony.
Think about the times you went to big time trade shows, which are are rife with contests. Simple and straightforward, you often just drop your business card into a bowl.
I would think that the laws vary by jurisdiction and most of the penalties imposed would be civil. If you think that you participated in some drawing and it was rigged and you could prove it and you can prove who benefitted illegally and you wanted to cause a stink, you could tell all of this to the police.
Recently, there was a case where the security firm that was overseeing some McDonald’s contests was proven to be cheating. Since those contests were nationwide, the FBI and FTC.
But how would one start to suspect that a contest were not run fairly? After all, the outcome you observe (i.e. ``Sorry, try again’’) is the one you should expect, so…
The only time I’ve been able to have any reason to be suspicious was a contest where some candy bar had free fast food meals as prizes in some wrappers. Didn’t win much over several months, as expected, then ended up travelling through small towns very far from chain fast food restaurants, and ended up winning several meals in two weeks. If those 6 or 7 data are indicative of a trend, would that be ``unfair’’? After all, the winning wrappers exist and go out…
Contests that want you to drop your card in a fish-bowl are only interested in getting your address and contact information. They will readily give you a prize provided that you purchase a membership or whatever it is that they are selling.
The various things contests should be mointored, especially the ones we get from companies like Coke and Pepsi, where they say 1 in 6 is a winner. By rights, if you buy six bottles, and you don’t win, you could turn around and sue the company for the value of the grand prize, because, none of your six has the prize, and you might have purchased the winning one if they had everything set up properly.
I would think it would be easy to cheat. When I was revenue manager at a small boutique hotel (221 rooms) I made up a promotion whereas any travel agent that typed the word “gold” into the miscelanous line (this is where they told us about special requests etc) would be entered for a drawing of $1,000.00.
After sending out emails and mailings to all our regular travel agents some lady in Wyoming who booked 5 rooms won. She was so shocked when she won. She said “But I only booked 5 rooms.”
But if we didn’t pay out I doubt anyone would’ve ever known.
“1 in 6 is a winner” is not the same as “every sixth one is a winner.” It’s like flipping a coin; over time, 1 in 2 will be tails, but it’s not unusual (1/8 of the time, to be precise) to flip three times in a row and get heads every time.
Re. the OP: Many of these contests state in the fine print that after the contest is over, you can send in a SASE and they’ll mail you a list of the contest winners. Whether anyone does that and then verifies the list of winners, I don’t know.
Most of the ones from the major companies I would imagine are tightly regulated. Further, the companies like Coke, Pepsie, McDonalds, etc. seem to like using their winners in future commercials as a sort of proof that their are winners and to provide an extra incentive to keep playing the game, so in that sense I would think they really do WANT people to win (still for their own gain, in the end) and also probably tightly regualte the games to prevent fraud because it is a huge amount of bad PR if it is found out they are rigged. In other words, it is in their best interest to produce the winners they claim in the games rules.
Didn't someone cheat in like a McDonald's or some big companies promotion a year or so ago? SOmehow a guy with the company rigged it so that he and his friends could win and split the money?
With smaller contests with smaller stakes, I think it would be easy to rig the contests and it probably does happen.
Most “Contests” are simply a ruse to get as much of your personal information as possible at the least possible cost. Your chances are about the same as winning the big power ball lottery, i.e. one divided by a kazillion. Save your time, postage, magazine subscription orders, etc. etc. sanity and money. Do not Respond. It also establishes prior contact and may result in spam by e or snail mail, not to mention dinner time phone call interruptions.
No intervention till the lawyers can generate yet another class action law suit.
Just to elaborate on Jackelope’s comment, in a “1 in 6 is a winner” contest, if you tried 6 times you’d still (assuming it is a fair contest) have an approximately 33% chance of NOT winning anything (5/6 to the power 6). If you tried 12 times you’d still have an 11% chance of NOT winning anything.
Some of those contests are actually agreements to change your long distance service. So…enter a contest, learn that your LD service has been changed to a very expensive one. And the contest rules do spell this out, but in very fine print.