t020 Posted February 5, 2004 Share Posted February 5, 2004 Do you trust prize draw competitions? Apparently, I have DEFINITELY WON one of the following; £250k, widescreen TV, £10k cash, holiday to Venice, £750 shopping trip, camcorder, or a laptop. The wording specifically states GUARANTEED to be one of those prizes. All I have to do is phone to get my pass code (at £1.50per min for up to 5 mins!). This got me wondering.... they can't lie about the prize or ethy'd be breaking the law, and none of the prizes are low in value compared with a £7.50 max phone call. I know its probably a con, I just can't see how. Has anyone ever won anything good with these spammed prize draw competitions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sidla Posted February 6, 2004 Share Posted February 6, 2004 You'll have probably won the trip to Venice, but you'll have to go when they tell you to, probably during the winter and out of peak time. The company will probably get a special deal on the holidays, and the chances of people actually taking the holidays is fairly slim. If you read the small print it'll tell you something like 1 x 250k cash, 1 x widescreen TV, 1 x 10k cash etc, etc, and then a minimum of 5000 holidays to Venice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
max Posted February 6, 2004 Share Posted February 6, 2004 If you read the small print it probably says something along the lines of: If there are more winners blah blah blah then the prize will be shared between them blah blah. What this means is that there are 10,000 winners for the £10k prize which means you all get £1. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
halevan Posted February 6, 2004 Share Posted February 6, 2004 Originally posted by t020 Do you trust prize draw competitions? Apparently, I have DEFINITELY WON one of the following; £250k, widescreen TV, £10k cash, holiday to Venice, £750 shopping trip, camcorder, or a laptop. The wording specifically states GUARANTEED to be one of those prizes. All I have to do is phone to get my pass code (at £1.50per min for up to 5 mins!). This got me wondering.... they can't lie about the prize or ethy'd be breaking the law, and none of the prizes are low in value compared with a £7.50 max phone call. I know its probably a con, I just can't see how. Has anyone ever won anything good with these spammed prize draw competitions? They are not breaking the law, I called at the Trading Standards and they said it was perfectly legal, as if you send any money they will put your name in draw for the prize that they say you have definately won. I have had dozens of these competitions and I have never sent any money, I post it back without a stamp and write on the document "Please deduct the £ 20 fee and post me the rest of my prize money" Needless to say they never do, but they keep sending me the same literature year after year, so now I don't even bother to reply, I put them straight in the garbage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam Miguel Posted February 6, 2004 Share Posted February 6, 2004 A lot of these 'you have won a prize'phone calls and junk-mail letters are sent by time-share companies. A colleague at work once played them along. He went to collect his prize in a Bradford hotel and had to listen to hour upon hour of propaganda and watch endless videos pushing the time-shares. At the end of it, he was shoved very hard to buy a timeshare but after a couple of hours he mangaged to escape and, thankfully he became a free man once again. He claimed his prize, which was the cheapest thing on the impressive list, a small black-and-white portable television worth about £15. That's how it works. I wouldn't be at all surprised if you had won the trip to Venice and there was a clause saying that it was entirely free as long as you paid for breakfast in the hotel at £100 per head. Come on: you don't get owt for nowt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest rosie Posted February 6, 2004 Share Posted February 6, 2004 My mother got a phone call from Spain,and ahe was told ahe had won the spanish lottery. They took details and said they would ring back. None of us believed it although she had sent money off for spanish lottery tickets. I think its unfair of people to lead old people on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
t020 Posted February 7, 2004 Author Share Posted February 7, 2004 Originally posted by rosie I think its unfair of people to lead old people on. It is, although I'm not old, please understand..... Just to clarify.... I've read the small print, and it explains the Venice trip as being 7 nights with a choice of departure times including breakfast at the hotel with no obligation to buy other dinners there. There are 1000 of these prizes, all the rest on my possible prize list are limited to 1. I'm a cynical person, I know this will be a con..... I just don't see how they can legally get away with it. Or maybe I have just won a holiday to Venice...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sidla Posted February 7, 2004 Share Posted February 7, 2004 There will be some sort of catch. You may have to listen to hours of time share garbage like the person above stated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ncrossland Posted February 7, 2004 Share Posted February 7, 2004 I was interested in this - so recently I played along - rather than phoning the £1.50/min number, I sent off with a SAE (read the small print, they provide it as an alternative) so it only cost a few pence to claim. Needless to say, I had won the prize of a carribean cruise - like yours, all flights etc WERE included - the catch being it is for 1 person (if you want to take another person you have to pay above the going rate), there is no guarantee of when it would be (it could be any time in the next 18 months) and they would only give you something ridiculuous like 7 days notice before you go, you have to accept or decline the trip on the spot - if you decline, you don't get offered again. So basically - great if you are single and unemployed! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fnkysknky Posted February 8, 2004 Share Posted February 8, 2004 The other big one is where they give you a holiday but you have to pay the insurance which is astronomical and you usually find you have to pay another supplement if you want to be sleeping in anything better than the hotel bin room. I was delivering post to an old guy the other day who gets loads of bulk mail crap, in one day he had 6 letters telling him he had won various cash prizes, holidays etc. on the outside of the envelope. It's just plain annoying now, especially when it creates more work for me, arseholes. Best thing to do is just return any reply envelopes they give you empty, just costs them that little bit more Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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