# Freeman Hicks, free airline tickets scam? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 6, 2009, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freeman-hicks-free-airline-tickets-scam/488481 "2009-03-06T04:03:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2009, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freeman-hicks-free-airline-tickets-scam/488481/1 "2009-03-06T04:03:25Z")
I"m going to assume this letter I got today is a scam. It is from Freeman Hicks and says I have qualified for an award of 2 roundtrip airline tickets. The 'qualified" sent up a red flag. So, I did some further investigating. The return address is a Hilton Hotel! Also, the telephone number given has a 480 area code, but central Phoenix uses 602. What’s the scam here? The letter arrived with a stamp and the envelope was either addressed by hand or a very good ink pen machine was used to simulate hand writing. The letter is on letterhead and appears to be generated with a word processing program. I tried Googling the name of the company and I didn’t come up with anything. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2009, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freeman-hicks-free-airline-tickets-scam/488481/2 "2009-03-06T04:26:21Z")
Hmmmm … you’re in the northern Arizona area … they have mesas up there. Was the letter signed Gordon? Know anything about inter-dimensional physics? It may or may not be a scam, but one thing’s for sure: the cake is a lie. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2009, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freeman-hicks-free-airline-tickets-scam/488481/3 "2009-03-06T04:45:22Z")
Sounds like a Timeshare pitch. Run away… ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2009, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freeman-hicks-free-airline-tickets-scam/488481/4 "2009-03-06T14:52:03Z")
480 is Scottsdale & surrounding. It’s probably junk mail for a condo / timeshare. Yeah, that’s a scam, but not in the same league as, say a Nigerian bank draft. IOW, probably legal and aboveboard, but not in your best interests. ---
**Author:** ![IrreverentTone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@IrreverentTone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IrreverentTone)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2009, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freeman-hicks-free-airline-tickets-scam/488481/5 "2009-03-06T15:00:23Z")
I got one of those the other day! Mine was hand addressed. I meant to google them, but it ended up in the trash before I got to it. Do you still have the envelope? Because mine had a postmark from somewhere like Texas or Georgia. ---
**Author:** ![Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tastes_of_chocolate/32/3232_2.png) [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tastes_of_Chocolate)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2009, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freeman-hicks-free-airline-tickets-scam/488481/6 "2009-03-06T17:08:45Z")
[The Hilton chain](http://www.hiltongrandvacations.com/) has a vacation club (a version of time share) that they have been pushing. It might be from that. ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2009, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freeman-hicks-free-airline-tickets-scam/488481/7 "2009-03-06T17:53:23Z")
> [@IrreverentTone](#): > > I got one of those the other day! Mine was hand addressed. Was it really hand-addressed, or was the address just printed in a font that looked like handwriting? I’ve seen the latter crop up in my junk mail from time to time; it gets your attention for a little longer than usual junk-mail envelopes do, until you figure out that all the e’s and all the t’s are “written” exactly the same way. ---
**Author:** ![anson2995](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@anson2995](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anson2995)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2009, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freeman-hicks-free-airline-tickets-scam/488481/8 "2009-03-06T20:37:03Z")
A google search reveals this is indeed a [time-share pitch](http://forums.online-sweepstakes.com/showthread.php?t=784343). FWIW, there are companies whose specialty is hand addressing envelopes for direct marketing campaigns. [Here’s one I’m familiar with](http://fasprint.com/services/hand.shtml?expandable=0). They hand stamps the letters, too, so they don’t look like junk mail. Site includes a cool video. I’m not involved with this company in any way, I just know that they exist.