I am wondering. When Coke and other companies run those “Under The Cap” type contests, the information on the side of the bottle invariably reads “No purchase necessary.” And I was under the impression that it was illegal to charge money or force a purchase to enter a contest or to redeem your prize (doesn’t that make it gambling?) So are convenience stores breaking the law when they force you to buy something to redeem your cap? This seems to be pretty much standard procedure as far as I can tell.*
Also, a store near me sells a pack of Marlboro cigarettes for $3. They also sell buy-one-get-one-free packs (it clearly says “Buy one get one free” on the packaging and on the sign) for $4. Is that false advertising? It’s obviously NOT buy-one-get-one-free, more like buy-one-get-one-for-$1.
So, are these places ripping us off, or are they within their rights?
*I can see why a store would prefer that you buy something to redeem your cap, but I usually save the caps until I can’t afford to buy a drink. Now I have to use them when I do have money. That bites.
“No Purchase Necessary” means there is no purchase necessary to play and/or win the game. They aren’t charging you a $1.00 “prize redemption fee.” The problem is that you are not winning a free 20Oz pop, you are winning a “Free 20Oz Soda with purchase of 20Oz Soda” as it says under the cap. Coke sucks:) Pepsi offers legitimate “Free 20Oz pop” caps, that can be redeemed with no money involved. Bring a cap and a pop up to the register, give them the cap, walk away. Done.
If you read the fine print, you’ll see an address you can write to and they’ll send you a cap. It may not be a winner, but it allows you to enter without purchasing anything. As for the “buy-one-get-one-free”, the two-pack is just a sales gimmick.
As was pointed out, you can send away for a ‘gamepiece’. But no guarantee that it will be a winner, and you’re out the postage. Here in Oregon, you still have to pay the five-cent deposit on the ‘free bottle’.
As for the Marlboro promotion (Buy one, get one free), I may be able to explain the price difference. Retailers have a contract with Philip Morris (the makers of Marlboro). The contract allows for certain discounts, which the retailer is reimbursed for. But with “deals” or “specials”, the cigs are sold at the regular price; because PM does not discount “Buy1Get1Free” deals. Thus, the retailer gets no “price protection” on specials, and cannot sell the deals at the already discounted price.
Bottom line, when PM is running ‘price protections’, you can buy single packs at the discounted price. But with “specials”, they make you pay the regular (non-discounted) price. It’s a Philip Morris thing, not a retailer-is-gouging you thing.
I wonder if this varies with region. I distinctly remember being somewhat peeved a few months ago when I got a Mountain Dew cap that said, “buy one 20 oz Pepsi product and get one free.” Looking at the bottle of Coke I have right now, which I purchased in Minnesota, I see that you can win a free 20 oz, not a buy one get one free.
As for requiring that you purchase something when redeeming a cap for a free pop, I’ve never heard of that before. I worked at a convenience store for six years in high school and college, and we never had that requirement. We didn’t even charge for the bottle deposit, though I know some stores do.
Some convenience store owners are just jerks. They hate hate hate the idea of giving stuff away for free. There was a store not too far from where I lived that refused to honor those caps at all. I threatened to report him to Coca-Cola, and he claimed he paid extra for his Coke to “opt-out” of the promotions. Whether or not this was true, I cannot say. He called my bluff I guess.
But something tells me the whole “purchase necessary to redeem cap” thing is just because he doesn’t like you walking out of his store with his inventory lighter and his cash register no heavier. Sure, he gets his money eventually, but he’d rather have some of yours, too. It doesn’t violate the law, but a call to Coke customer service might get him to change his ways.
Just to clear it up, my Coke caps do NOT say buy one get one free. It just says “FREE 20 OZ. COKE CLASSIC.” And they usually don’t make me buy a drink, I just have to buy something. Sometimes I buy my kids some ten cent candy. But sometimes I don’t have ten cents and I’m saving the milk for the kids, so I have to drink water.
With the cigarettes, the question is whether it is false advertising. After all, the sign in the store says buy one get one free, and yet they are not selling two packs for the price of one.