I just got home, and on my answering machine was a recorded message from an excessively perky woman. It said:
Sounds too good to be true, so it probably is. I particularly love the very specific details of my entry - “you or a family member,” and “at one of our events last year.”
What is likely to happen when i call that 800 number? Are they really going to give me a free trip to Vegas, or are they just going to try to sell me something?
I’ve gotten the same message on my voicemail and that could only mean one thing. We’re going to be partying together!
If you call back, they will certainly put your name on a gold-star suckers sucker list. They will probably tell you there are some charges you will incur… and that’s where the scam beings.
If you did enter a contest, just check with the contest organizers to find out if you won. (I had a friend who insisted on being notified about the winner for so long, they gave him the prize. But it was just a bike.)
If you call back, they will certainly put your name on a gold-star suckers sucker list. They will probably tell you there are some charges you will incur… and that’s where the scam beings.
If you did enter a contest, just check with the contest organizers to find out if you won. (I had a friend who insisted on being notified about the winner for so long, they gave him the prize. But it was just a bike.)
If you call back, they will certainly put your name on a gold-star suckers sucker list. They will probably tell you there are some charges you will incur… and that’s where the scam beings.
If you did enter a contest, just check with the contest organizers to find out if you won. (I had a friend who insisted on being notified about the winner for so long, they gave him the prize. But it was just a bike.)
If you call back, they will certainly put your name on a gold-star suckers sucker list. They will probably tell you there are some charges you will incur… and that’s where the scam beings.
If you did enter a contest, just check with the contest organizers to find out if you won. (I had a friend who insisted on being notified about the winner for so long, they gave him the prize. But it was just a bike.)
99% chance that they’ll try to sell you a resort timeshare or variation thereof - all you have to do is agree to attend the “Sales Presentation” which doesn’t sound bad, but friends who have done it have said it’s like going in for a root canal. Before they make the final arrangements, they do some more subtle psychological pre-screening on you to make sure you seem like an authenic customer.
It’s unusual if they really pay for your round-trip airfare. You might find they mean round-trip from Tampa to Orlando !
A lot of these recorded spiels are from “short-term” operators,
at the first sign of a complaint from a consumer they’ve packed up and the 800 number is just a memory.
It is too good to be true. We got a similar message when my fiancee signed up for something at a wedding planning event. In our case:
Link time:
http://www.oag.state.tx.us/newspubs/releases/2001/20010913royal.htm
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/GoodMorningAmerica/GMA020227Cookware_hunter.html
http://www.partypop.com/forums/general/m13780.htm
Anyway, I’m not sure what kind of event you (“or your family member”) were attending, but many trip giveaways are scams. If it smells like one, it probably is.
And no, we didn’t go on the trip or buy anything.
They’re going to give you a free trip to Vegas so that they can sell you something – a vacation condo timeshare.
OK, I don’t know for a fact that they’re doing this to you, but I’ve seen it many times. The trip involves staying in a fairly plush suite, which is then pushed for sale at a half-hour to two-hour presentation (which you must promise to attend before you get the trip). The problem with timeshares is that they typically have very little resale potential, so unless you are buying into a very very desirable condo, you’ll be stuck paying that timeshare fee, and maintenance fee, etc., for the rest of your life. I don’t know about you, but I think going to the same place for vacation at the same time of year every year for thirty years would get pretty old.
Thanks, j.c., i think i got the picture after your fourth post! 
Thanks to everyone else as well. I thought about calling the number just to see what they were offering, but i don’t want my name or number on more lists than it is already.
But you they never said “You’ve won…”
They’ll say, “You’ve been elected to receive…”
Or, "You’ve been chosen among x people to go to Orlando (not Disney) for an all inclusive…bla bla bla…’
You didn’t win squat.
Nametag:
There’s no way i would/could buy into a timeshare. Firstly, i don’t really even like the idea of them. Secondly, and most relevantly right now, i’m a grad student who has enough trouble paying his rent every month without going into debt for a timeshare.
To tell you the truth, i’d be willing to attend a boring 2-hour sales pitch if it meant a free trip to Vegas. But i’m still rather skeptical that one could take the trip, refuse to buy into the time share, and still come away without forking out any money for airfare and accommodation. Do these outfits really make enough money from this sales technique that they can afford to pick up the tab for freeloaders like me?
Thnaks for the links, Monkeypants. The cookware deal does seem a little different, because the vacations that they offer do not include airfare, whereas the message on my answering machine promised two return air tickets as well as accommodation.
I’ve actually won some big prizes, including vacations, from various trivia contests, and I can tell you this: if you win, you NEVER get a pre-printed postcard saying, “You won- call this toll-free number.”
If you really do win a big prize from a reputable company, you’ll usually get a certified letter from one of a handful of major prize coordinating companies (Marden-Kane is one of the big ones), one that will require you to prove your identity, establish that you haven’t violated any rules, and provide some key information (including your SSN- if a prize is worth more than six hundred bucks, they have to notify Internal Revenue).
I receive postcards saying I’ve won “free trips” on a regular basis, but such postcards are always (obviously) mass produced, which means the people behind it have a LOT of “winners.” If you read the fine print (or call them), you’ll usually find that they don’t even provide your airfare. All they do is give you a few nights in a condo or time share suite that they hope to sell you.
If a “prize” confirmation doesn’t come with the kind of certified letter and information package I’ve described, it’s probably not on the level.
The sales pitch will not be boring, it will be harrowing. I speak from experience.
What is so bad about a 2 hour sales pitch? IF you decide you will not spend anything, buy anything, what is the harm? I dont care how hard the sales pitch is, if I decide I will not buy anything, I wont buy it. Do I really get the free trip even though I would not spend or sign anything?
I read an article in the Mpls. Star Tribune about these trips. The guy who wrote the article “won” a trip to Vegas just like you did, so he decided to try to claim the trip and write an article about his experience. Well, it turns out that he had to sit through a sales pitch in the Twin Cities before he got the trip. It was a very hard sell, indeed. Quite harrowing. When they finally figured out that he wasn’t buying, they led him into a room so that he could fill out the paperwork for his trip. Turns out that he’d need a $100 deposit for his “free” trip (full of restrictions and disclaimers, of course.) He paid the deposit…he’d suffered this far, and he wanted his trip.
Then, a few weeks later, there was a follow-up article. He still hadn’t received his trip, and, IIRC, the company he’d won it from was nowhere to be found.
mhendo, are you married? If you’re not, I’m sure that once they find that out, or the fact that you’re a grad student, you’ll suddenly become “ineligible”. I got some letters in college about time shares, and the fine print always said that I was ineligible if I was not married and did not make a certain income. Boy, did they get the wrong mailing list!