# car key promotion---how it works

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-key-promotion-how-it-works/501508>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 30, 2009, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-key-promotion-how-it-works/501508 "2009-06-30T19:43:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 7

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**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\
**Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-key-promotion-how-it-works/501508/7 "2009-06-30T20:11:07Z")

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> [@KneadToKnow](#):
>
> What I don’t get about these promotions is, how does the winner not know immediately they’ve won? Anybody in a position to get one of these mailers knows what a real car key looks like and would be able to tell it at a glance from the fake toy keys they send out in those mailers.

They don’t have a point of comparison. For all they know, everyone else’s looks the same. Anyway, car locks don’t care about how cheap a key looks. It just has to have the right profile. I have a spare key for my SUV that looks like it came from a cereal box and it works just fine.

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