
Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall - sxv
https://thehustle.co/why-nobody-ever-wins-the-mall-car-giveaway
======
lysp
About 30 years ago in Australia There was a competition at the local shopping
centre. Spend $20 at any shop in the centre, show your receipt and you get a
chance to win the displayed car.

The chance involved folding a paper plane, and then trying to get it into the
car through the sunroof. Which was only open a small crack.

A friend of the family tried about 5 times over the day and never got close.

They came back quite drunk at the end of the day to have one last go. Threw
the plane and instead of going over the top of the car, it accidentally
slammed directly into the front windscreen. It then rebounded straight up in
the air and then dropped straight down through the sunroof.

They walked away with the car.

~~~
technofiend
There's a furniture salesman here in Houston who makes heavy use of that sort
of promotion. His latest if you spend $3,000 on a mattress and the Astros win
the "2018 baseball final championship series" you'll be refunded the purchase
price.

Not sure why it's worded so formally; must be a legal thing.

~~~
logfromblammo
$3000 on a mattress? WTF? How is that even possible for such a highly
commoditized good?

~~~
floatrock
Freakonomics podcast did an episode on it:
[http://freakonomics.com/podcast/mattress-store-
bubble/](http://freakonomics.com/podcast/mattress-store-bubble/)

That's also exactly why Casper and a half dozen other upstarts have come out
with the memory-foam mailed-to-you-in-a-vacuum-tube online mattress sales.

~~~
fwip
The conclusion of the podcast was "If you spend $800 you're probably safe,
below that it's hard to know if it's good or awful. Above $1500 is too much."

~~~
lotsofpulp
Considering Marriott/Hilton/IHG requires their hotels to use a 10 year
warrantied mattress that only costs $250-$300 each, I'd say even $800 is too
high. Even though that's wholesale price, doubling should be enough to get a
single unit price.

People would be better off investing in some HIIT cardio excercise if they're
looking for a good night's sleep. And eating less / more nutritious food.

~~~
s17n
The extra $300 is what you pay for going with a reputable brand, because
unlike Marriott, you don't have the time to figure out which off-brand
mattresses are crap and which aren't.

~~~
lotsofpulp
They're not off brand, they're Temper-Sealy or Simmons.

~~~
s17n
In that case, your assertion that "doubling should be sufficient to get single
unit price" was wrong, cause you aren't going to get a queen from either of
those companies for $500.

------
Animats
Since this is a California on-site thing, California sweepstakes law
applies.[1]

\- "The exact nature and approximate value of the prizes must be disclosed
clearly and conspicuously when they are offered."

\- "The law prohibits the company from misrepresenting the odds of receiving
any item offered."

\- Prohibited: "Failing to award and distribute all prizes of the value and
type represented."

Online complaint form here.[2]

[1]
[http://consumerwiki.dca.ca.gov/wiki/index.php/CONTESTS/SWEEP...](http://consumerwiki.dca.ca.gov/wiki/index.php/CONTESTS/SWEEPSTAKES/GIFTS/PRIZES)
[2] [https://oag.ca.gov/contact/consumer-complaint-against-
busine...](https://oag.ca.gov/contact/consumer-complaint-against-business-or-
company)

~~~
starpilot
Why haven't they all been shutdown if they are clearly illegal? Also, I've
seen these across the country.

~~~
afpx
It is incredibly frustrating that police don’t seem to actively enforce the
majority of the laws. My local police seem anemic. There sure are a lot of
them, though. Patrol cars are always visible. And, (right-wing) politicians
seem to always want to be hiring more and upgrading their gear. For instance,
recently they asked for a $30M shooting range. But, if the local newspapers
are a good record, it seems that all they seem to do is give out speeding
tickets, enforce drug laws, and and bust minorities and immigrants (for
whatever). I’m not being facetious.

Anyone in the US have tips on how to get involved to help oversee and direct
them? I’m pretty naive and don’t have much time, but I do have motivation, at
least. I have tried calling them in the past to get a better understanding of
what they do, but it was difficult to find the right person to talk to. I’ve
considered doing independent research and reporting (via FOIA), but I also
fear repercussions.

~~~
wjossey
It depends on the structure of the municipality. You may have a civilian
oversight board which has some level of control, and this could be an elected
or appointed position. The other option being to become mayor, city manager,
or whatever chief executive your area has with oversight over the police
force.

~~~
saalweachter
In many counties, Sheriff is an elected position.

------
drawkbox
On the flipside, I worked on promotions game systems in the brand promotions
space with instant win and giveaways after the user played a game. If they won
we had to contact them to verify and get info to send them the prize.

When someone won the prize we had to get the social security number of the
person that won for gift tracking as many were over 15k, their contact info
and location to send the prize, you'd be surprised at how many people pass
that up or think it is a scam and/or never get back. We had to pick the next
person if they passed it up or didn't get back and sometimes it would go
through dozens of people before they would accept it. Lots of game systems,
trips and even motorcycles were passed up.

I myself would have probably done the same thing, hard to believe you won and
if you do win it is hard to not think it is a scam due to systems like
mentioned in the article.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
As an individual authenticating callers is difficult.

I recently had someone claiming to be from the ATO (Australian Taxation
Office) call and ask me to identify myself. Not surprising, my tax filing is
overdue. I advised them as a security policy I do not give out PII to
unauthenticated callers, asked for a reference number and a return phone
number. The number I was given is not listed on the ATO website so I did not
return the call. Found some forum posts claiming the number is for return
callers who have a reference number. Still, if I can’t find the number listed
on offical media I don’t call back.

I’m trying to think of a way the average person could authenticate a caller.
I’m not security or technology expert so my knowledge in this area is limited.

Any ideas?

~~~
moftz
I've had my bank call me at work because I forgot to pay my credit card off
the day after it was due. No callerid info, just a number. The woman on the
phone didn't say who she was, who she was calling from, she just immediately
asked me if this was blahblah. My work has been the subject of a bunch of
scammers calling about financial services lately so I wasn't too keen on
saying who I was. I kept asking her who she was calling from and she just kept
asking me who I was. Finally she said she was from my bank. I told her I'd
call her back. Called up my bank and had to wait through several people for
someone to tell me what was up. Not only does there need to be some etiquette
when cold calling someone (like using callerid and stating upfront who you are
and who you are calling from!) but callerid need an update so you can't spoof
it so we can trust it again.

~~~
JackCh
Etiquette from a bank is like water from a stone. Consider moving your
accounts to a credit union.

------
invalidusernam3
I remember a few years back walking on the beach with my dad and some similar
time share scam people asked us if we wanted to enter a competition. We were
handed two scratch cards with various prizes; cash, a holiday or the grand
prize of a car.

Obviously all the scratch cards were winners for the holiday.

My dad scratched his card and said "Oh great, I won the car!"

The scam guys eyes opened wide and he had a confused look on his face and
asked my dad to show him the scratch card. Obviously it was actually for a
holiday, but it was great seeing the confusion in the guys face since he knew
there was no car.

~~~
quickthrower2
What the scam? "Free flight" if you buy the timeshare or something?

~~~
pwg
Roping the unsuspecting into an incredibly expensive time-share using hard-
sell boiler-room tactics without ever being up-front about the true costs.

I sat through one of these once, curious about how it was going to go, and
with the intent going in of not ever buying anything anyway. They present the
timeshare as if it costs only pennies a day, and never admit to the true cost
unless pressed very hard (and even then they never quote a final figure). What
they are really selling is a loan package for the purchase of the timeshare
(where the timeshare company is themselves loan originator) with an attached
interest rate of something like 12 or 13% APR (bank mortgages at the time I
sat through the one I sat through were running about 3.5-4% APR). The
timeshare, if you can squeeze a dollar figure out of them comes out to be
about $40,000 for which they finance it for you at their 12-13% APR (so a gold
mine for them, but bad for you).

I ended up getting the double-team effort (two trying to convince me to jump
in) to try to sell me on the value of the scam before I had finally had enough
and cut off the sales pitch. Meanwhile, all around me (they did the pitch in a
large room with small tables where everyone was in view of everyone else) I
was watching the gullible filling out their "loan applications" and setting
themselves up for $500/month for the next ten to twenty years before they
could pay off the 'loan'.

The cost, plus the interest, was setup such that one would be hard put to
actually be able to go on enough vacations at the timeshare to actually make
the timeshare profitable for the new owner. If one went on the number of
vacations that are typical, one was setting oneself up for each vacation
ultimately costing $25K+ (for what should have cost only about $2-3K). This,
of course, was the intent of the group running the timeshare, hide the true
cost enough that the gullible don't realize they are paying $25K for what
should have cost them $3K, and pocket the difference as pure profit.

~~~
gregpilling
The real scam is the ongoing, monthly, maintenance fees on your 'timeshare'.
Worldmark wanted $100 per month, per week of ownership, in a presentation I
saw in Vegas. Which means that 52 weeks x $100 x 12 months = $62,400 per year
in 'maintenance' on each unit. So even if you paid cash, they still get $62K
per year in addition. This was Worldmark Vegas, buying a 'week' in a townhouse
complex of $150,000 units.

The movie "Queen of Versailles" was fascinating. Timeshare mogul builds USA
largest house
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2125666/videoplayer/vi191341081...](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2125666/videoplayer/vi191341081?ref_=tt_ov_vi)

~~~
birdman3131
52 weeks x $100 x 12 months = $62,400 is wrong. The 52 weeks means the 12
months should not be there. 52 weeks x $100 = $52,00

~~~
logfromblammo
If the unit has been chopped up such that all 52 weeks of the share have been
sold, then a combination of people will be paying $100 per week of ownership,
every month. Your share of the monthly maintenance is allocated by the number
of weeks you "own".

You aren't just paying maintenance for the week that belongs to you. Original
calculation of $62400 is correct. Part of the scam is obfuscating from you the
true costs of the deal.

If the 52 week-owners knew each other, and could all afford the costs of the
share in the first place, they could conceivably form their own LLC, cut out
the timeshare company middleman, pay $10k each up front for week-length shares
in a $520000 property, and cut their maintenance fee in half, to $50 per share
per month (assuming 5% upkeep/utilities/taxes per year). They could even rent
out any unused weeks on AirBnB to cut the maintenance charges, or even pay out
distributions.

The timeshare people are making bank on the fact that getting up to 52 people
to spontaneously come together in a common cause is extremely unlikely. You
need a prime mover organizing the whole thing, who is ideally positioned to
profit from information asymmetry.

~~~
Gh0stRAT
As much as I hate all the block chain hype, I could see smart contacts
facilitating this kind of coordination.

I guess there would still be a discoverability problem, not to mention the
very significant risk of putting your money into a scam.

~~~
logfromblammo
I'm not up to speed on the mathematics, but a matchmaking algorithm that keeps
preference data secret until all participants in a trade web commit to a deal
that satisfies at least one of those preferences could drive a lot of
middlemen and scam-like businesses out of the market.

For instance, you might find an algorithmic pickle agent in the network, and
tell it that you could eat one big jar of crisp dill cucumber pickles every
two weeks if it costs less than 8 money units, delivered to your door, or one
per week if it costs less than 3 money units, committing some number of money
units greater than 8 to back a promise to buy at those prices. A small-time
pickle-making farmer might tell the agent that they can ship at most 500 jars
a week, as long as they get at least 2 money units per jar, or as many as 800
if they can get 4 per jar (cost of hiring a dedicated packer, perhaps). The
pickle agent consults with a commodity shipping agent, calculates a billion
different ways to move pickles from suppliers to consumers, and then starts
moving money and pickles around. Everyone who promised to buy at a certain
price is guaranteed to get the goods at that or a lower price, and everyone
who promised to sell at a certain price is guaranteed to ship the goods at
that or a higher price. The shippers get their fee for moving a package from
point A to point B. The agents take their cut to pay for their computation,
and for insurance against failed shipments or bad pickles. The system would
also need to include distributor/importer/resellers, because some trades just
aren't possible unless you pack a whole pallet of pickles, or a whole
truckload/shipping container, and break that out for individual orders closer
to the consumers.

That's all technically possible with smart contracts, as far as I know, but it
would require a huge amount of programming effort to even get the basics
correct. And Wal-Mart already has their supply chain, inventory, and
distribution software in place.

------
analogmemory
My dad signed up for one of those sweepstakes back in the '90s. They called
and said he won a "prize" but he had to come into view a "presentation". Went
to the "presentation" where they tried to hustle him to signup for a
timeshare. He resisted and they gave him the "prize", which was a knockoff
boombox.

That boombox is still alive, my mom uses it in the garage when she's doing
gardening. I'm pretty sure the company that gave it to us is long gone. Life
finds a way?

~~~
polynomial
What's a boombox?

~~~
acomjean
For those of a certain age (I guess).... Its a radio player with speakers.
Usually battery powered. Usually with a cassette tape or two (for copying).
They ended up getting pretty big in the 80s (large in size) with detachable
speakers.

We had the small yellow waterproof, sony sport model.[1]

I think one even had a record player.

At some point loud portable stereos migrated into cars.

Now we just transmit audio to portable battery powered bluetooth speakers

images:

Sony sport boombox
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/55910525@N07/16532295849](https://www.flickr.com/photos/55910525@N07/16532295849)

google image search
[https://www.google.com/search?q=boombox+80s&source=lnms&tbm=...](https://www.google.com/search?q=boombox+80s&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X)

vector stock: [https://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vector/vintage-
cass...](https://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vector/vintage-cassette-
recorder-ghetto-blaster-boombox-vector-1715494)

~~~
macintux
I had one with a tiny b&w TV in addition to the stereo. Mediocre audio and
video quality but it lasted for years.

------
MatthewWilkes
Amusingly, the website this article is hosted in pops up a modal asking you to
sign up to a mailing list with a low contrast dismiss button and saying "you
can always unsubscribe". People in glass houses.

~~~
fortythirteen
Ultimate hypocrisy is that their profit model is probably built around
reselling their email list.

~~~
jl87
We do not make money from reselling people's email.

~~~
fortythirteen
Do you use your email list to send third party promotional content?

------
apexalpha
>The information from these forms is collected en masse, entered into a large
database, and delivered directly to the telemarketing company running the
promotion (in this case, Great Destinations).

Praise be GDPR.

------
blowski
Another shady “competition” is the “complete this form and get a laptop”.
Except it’s not just this form, it’s this form, and this form, and this form,
and this form... until the user gives up.

Each of those forms goes to a sales call list. And when you give up, you’ve
already completed half a dozen forms - and you’ve given all that data for
free.

If somebody does ever complete all of the forms, they get told the laptop is
now out of stock - but here’s a free £50 voucher for Amazon.

~~~
userbinator
I know some people who automated those but basically fed them fake generated
data, and managed to make quite a bit before they got banned. Probably not
legal, but AFAIK the responses to those surveys aren't legally binding either,
and the more "poisoned the well", the less profiling and tracking they can do,
so I don't have any moral problems with that.

~~~
6cd6beb
Is there a good way to find these free laptop scams?

I'm looking for good use cases to sharpen my selenium skills and like wasting
scammer's time.

------
dirktheman
A couple of years ago I had some time to kill in Vegas since i don't gamble. I
was approached by this timeshare dude who offered me free tickets to the Shark
Reef and a $100 gift card for a fancy restaurant. I attended the meeting (free
breakfast!), politely declined all offers from a range of salesmen with ever
hardening sales tactics and walked out with my vouchers two hours later.

That was a good day.

~~~
felipemnoa
Similar experience here. They really do try several tricks to get you to bite.
The one trick that they tried was that once we were in the restaurant the lady
claimed that it was a mistake and that we were not supposed to be there. The
free meal was only for members but she would overlook it and continue with the
presentation just for us. Pretty laughable.

------
dvcrn
My mom participated in one of these drawings at a mall in Germany. A few weeks
later we received a call: we got randomly selected for the final 10-20
candidates (can’t remember the exact number) from which 5 will win a car and
should come to the main event.

At the main event, believe or not, 5 people out of the 10-30 finalists
actually won a car! My mom included! Of course they said it’s not the car that
was at the mall because that was only for demo, but she received a brand new
never used model roughly a month later after filling out the papers and still
drives it today :)

------
throwaway0255
I used to know someone who worked for one of the companies behind those "We'll
Fix Your Credit Score, Call Us" and "We'll Buy Your House, Call Us" signs on
the side of street intersections (among other things), and I asked her to
explain to me how those signs could possibly make any money.

The way she explained it was (mostly her words), way less than 1% of people
are dumb enough to dial the number, but of the people who do call, 100% of
them are people who are dumb enough to call.

In other words, if the signs appeared more credible, they would be much less
effective, because they'd end up wasting a lot of time screening the calls of
people who are unlikely to accept the terms they offer.

She also said that scaling up (and going up market) would increase their
likelihood of litigation.

It seems to me like that's what's happening with these timeshare seminars. The
car isn't just there to mislead people about the potential upside of the
contest, the car is really there to screen the marketing process for gullible
people attracted to large financed purchases.

~~~
TangoTrotFox
I sometimes wonder if this isn't a fairly common practice in numerous
industries. For instance some time back I was watching a show on US cable
television. Vikings on the History Channel, in particular. Aside from the
completely obnoxious icons and labeling everywhere, about 5 minutes into the
show advertisement pops up literally in the middle of the screen consuming
about 25% of the screen space. And that was enough for me to immediately move
onto other things, as that's worth less than the $0 price of admission.
Incidentally the web version is amazing, has more content, is better quality,
has no ads, and something I would generally highly recommend - underrated
series.

While cable TV, and cable news in particular, has been rightfully demonized,
it makes me wonder if they're really just happy to target themselves down to a
demographic that is willing to tolerate this nonsense. And perhaps this
demographic might also respond more favorably to advertising, influencing, and
other corporate ends.

The same thing has also happened in the movie industry as well. If you think
the vast majority of modern movies suck, it would not necessarily just be
because of nostalgia or other effects. The modern movie viewer demographic has
changed _radically_ and thus movies are being made for these people. Even more
interesting is that movie ticket sales are down hard, but they're somehow
convincing the new demographic to pay even more which actually means that
gross receipts have been stable and even increasing at times.

\--

Of course there's also a chicken and egg question. In the movie industry for
instance, did movies change because the demographic changed, or did the
demographic change because movies changed?

~~~
krrrh
I wonder how much we undervalue audience segmentation when analyzing social
network profitability. Twitter and reddit’s perpetual issues making money
could be that they index too highly for cynical people who trust no one, while
Facebook does gangbusters indexing highly for people desperate to make a
connection.

------
threatofrain
Well I would be for penalizing such businesses. Isn't this just bait and
switch? Such businesses should have their licenses revoked, as they damage
relations for everyone else who wants to use prize incentives. These cheaty
businesses also call into question the common person's ability to negotiate
with fine print -- it's just too much.

~~~
extradego
In the USA, this is just how it’s done. I’m not exaggerating; this is
_business as usual_. Penalizing this would be a catastrophe for Americans. I
think the sheer volume of the tricks, lies, gimmicks and gotchas cause each
one bleed into the next to the point of immersion. The shimmer of the
spectacle and _hope_ become one and the same. Because every day is just
another swindle at the Big Bazaar Of Life.

~~~
m_fayer
A decade ago I would have thought your comment was over the top. Then I moved
to Germany. And was surprised to find an utter lack of spammy phone calls, no
crowd of ubiquitous scammers vying for my attention, no surprise mystery
medical bills, nothing. I was with my German girlfriend in a department store
once, she tore a little slip off the stockings she was buying, put her name
and email on it, and dropped it into a jug by the cash register. I gave her a
"were you born yesterday" look and asked if she hadn't yet learned that these
things are all scams. She had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. A
month later we won an all expenses paid trip to a resort in Turkey, it was on
the tacky side but also the height of luxury and relaxation. All the stocking
brand wanted from us in return was a few happy selfies to post on their
Twitter account.

If more Americans knew that it doesn't have to be this way, maybe things could
change.

~~~
glenneroo
I have more or less the same story moving to Austria. I get spammy calls but
they are actually legit surveys (quality of life, political leanings,
newspaper preferences, etc) and only because I gave up my phone number at a
party many years ago and haven't bothered to have it removed. I get once of
these survey calls about every 3-6 months and if I'm not in the mood I just
tell them I don't have time and they never call back. On occasion they ask if
they could call back at a later date.

Re: winning things - I won 500 Euro from Visa for entering a contest, where
the only requirements were to fill out the online form with my name, age and
email address, followed by using my Visa card 3 times in one month any of the
following 3 months. I should note that Visa the company here doesn't actually
function as a credit card like in the U.S., rather it's directly connected to
your bank account, where at the end of the month any balance due is
automatically deducted. If your account drops below zero, you just pay some
interest at the end of the month. From my basic research (looking at my bank
statements for the past 2 years), it's extremely low. In fact looking at my
last "25% KEST" charges, I was in minus for 3 months last year, and the charge
was 0,02 euro cents. I honestly have no idea how that works, but I assume we
have some good consumer protections in place.

~~~
sumedh
> rather it's directly connected to your bank account,

So a debit card?

~~~
glenneroo
I thought a debit card was just for withdrawing cash? We have bank cards
(Bankomat Karte) for withdrawing cash - in fact, when you pay and want to use
the card, many people just say "karte" (literally: card) to mean a bank
(debit?) card and not a credit card.

Our Visa cards can also withdraw using a pin, but I don't know anyone who does
(anecdotally speaking - but I do pay attention to shoppers ahead of me in
line, seems like a rare occurrence). I personally use it to (very rarely)
purchase products for which I don't have enough cash on hand, and because
banks generally set the withdraw limit to 400€/day. On top of that, most
places (IMO) still don't accept credit cards or will charge 3-5% fee (such as
the official Apple dealer McShark). Visa transactions are also hindered in
comparison, there tends to be less information available about the purchase
and seller names are truncated to ~20 characters. Also the booking is often
delayed (online) until the statement is sent per e/mail, unlike bank
transactions which appear online within 24 hours.

~~~
sumedh
> I thought a debit card was just for withdrawing cash?

In many countries you can use the debit card to withdraw cash and make online
and EFTPOS transactions. EFTPOS machines can process debit and credit cards.
With debit cards the money is deducted from your account immediately or in
your case at the end of the month. (but then it should be called credit not
debit)

~~~
glenneroo
So to answer your question using your selected terminology, they are zero-
interest credit cards.

------
ainiriand
...And there is still people considering the GDPR a bad thing...

------
foobar1962
When I was a kid -- I'm in Australia -- we'd regularly get computer line-
printed Readers Digest Sweepstakes out of the blue -- we lived in a farm in a
rural area and this was the 1960s.

The sweepstakes often made claims that "we have invested $1.34 in your
name..." It was many years before I realised that they really meant "we have
spent $1.34 buying your name and address..."

------
jetti
A few years ago my wife got a call about a free cruise but the catch was
sitting through the timeshare sales pitch. We had no intention of buying in,
especially since we couldn't afford it at the time, but we wanted the free
cruise (well my wife did, I didn't want to go). Well we sat through the
horrible sales pitch and then they put us in a room to get the cruise. We sat
in the room for maybe 25 minutes before we gave up. Nobody came in to help us
in that time. The reason we left wasn't because of the wait, I was determined
to get that free cruise despite not wanting to be there. The reason was the
restrictions behind the cruise. There were tons of blackout dates and you
couldn't pick the exact date of travel. You picked 3 dates and they would let
you know which one. I also believe there was a very short window of when they
would notify you that you had the tickets to the cruise. I was starting my
career at the time so I didn't have the flexibility of just taking a week off
at the last minute.

~~~
acomjean
My friend won a "dive trip" after entering a contest at a dive show.

just sit through a timeshare pitch.

I went with him, because my dad spent some times in car sales and I'm good at
not buying things. Plus as his dive certified friend I could go too.

We went to a rented conference room in a hotel for the pitch. It was agony..
High pressure sales (If they have to pressure you to buy, you probably don't
want it)

He got the trip voucher, but it ended up being worthless. It was cheaper to
book another trip normally because of added fees and such on the free trip. He
never took his "free" trip.

~~~
jetti
> It was agony.. High pressure sales (If they have to pressure you to buy, you
> probably don't want it)

It wasn't as bad for me. I spent most of the time in my own head pointing out
all the flaws in their logic.

------
dluan
Back in the 90s there was a hilarious trend of winning the car in the mall by
being the person to be in the car the longest. This was when SUVs were
becoming a really big thing.

People were sleeping in the car with 5 other strangers to see who could
outlast the others, with only short bathroom breaks allowed.

I'm not really sure what the advertisers/dealers won in that exchange.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Probably a bit of free publicity in a local newspaper, people coming by to
watch for a while (while a salesperson approaches them), etc. It's good fun,
too.

------
ktal
I saw that very car at that very mall, and the screens were all surrounded by
people eagerly entering their info. Don't people get enough spam calls and
emails to realize why?

~~~
dawnerd
They just blame it on their phone company and the like. I know a few people
that knowingly hand out info at conventions yet will blame everything but.
Might have to do with the marketing companies waiting long enough and people
quickly forgetting about them entering their info. So when the spam calls hit
they just think of whatever company they know for sure has it.

Side note: it’s almost impossible to book anything in Orlando without getting
spamming with timeshare calls months later. I’m amazed it’s even legal.

~~~
Cthulhu_
This is why the GDPR and similar things are good; you can sign up, but they
have to delete your data if you ask them for it. It makes schemes like this a
lot less er, 'final', so to speak.

~~~
Rjevski
However, this only works if GDPR ends up being enforced, which doesn’t look
too great so far considering how many sites violate the regulation with non-
compliant forced consent screens.

------
SpaceManiac
Reminds me a bit of a process I've been wrestling with to redeem a "rebate"
(gift card to a chosen retailer from a list) on an online textbook, negotiated
between the professor and the textbook company after the semester start. The
stakes are a little lower ($15 rather than a car) but the hoops they make you
jump through, and the personal information they want, for what is ostensibly
your money definitely make it feel just as scammy.

~~~
drawkbox
Nathan For You did a really funny take on this for a gas 'rebate' in S1E4.
Basically jumping through hoops until everyone would give up.

[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2777064/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2777064/)

------
kumarvvr
In India, at the entrance of almost every mall, you will find a few people
handing you cards to fill-up your name, phone number and email, with the
promise of lucky draw gifts.

It's a way to harvest personal information for mobile phone and email
spamming.

Yet, so many fall for it. Even modern urban types.

------
dxxvi
Once, there was a telemarketer calling me and trying to persuade me to buy a
home alarm system. All he wanted is to get my credit card #. I asked him to
repeat himself 2-3 times for almost all of his sentences (not all, because
that would make him hang up). After about 20 mins, he knew my game and said
that I was wasting his time and I was not a good citizen of the U.S. I was sad
because somebody said that but the whole conversation was fun :-)

~~~
mikro2nd
Have to smile, reading this. It reminds me of the time I received a very
scammy call telling me I'd won a week's holiday in Florida (US accented
person; I am not in the US). Now in my world view, if first prize is a week in
Florida, second prize would be two weeks in Florida. Losers get to spend the
rest of eternity at Maralago (sp?). But all that's a horse of a different
colour...

I asked the caller to hold a moment...

Went out into my veggie garden and spent almost an hour doing some digging and
weeding and generally having a grand ol' time in the sunshine. It raised quite
a laugh when I returned around sunset and the caller was still holding,
waiting for me to return. Quite unbelievable! Led me to wonder how these
people are incentivised.

I put the phone down without waiting to find out anything more about their
scam/offer/whatever.

~~~
frockington
I know a lot of telemarketers can not hang up a phone themselves or require a
manager to do it for them. Not hanging up is a great method if you want to
annoy them

~~~
mikro2nd
I considered it a service to society -- the longer they're (supposedly) on the
phone to me, the less time they have to annoy other victims.

Also: I just wondered how they would treat the situation. Clearly with more
patience than I would!

------
blancotech
When I was in middle school, I remember doing a raffle at our local mall for
an iPod Mini. My Mom told me to ruffle up the paper before dropping it in
because the raffle drawer would feel the rough edges and select that one.

We got a call a few weeks later that I won the iPod mini. I still remember my
mom driving me to the mall and them handing me the new iPod Mini. That was my
peek. I've never won a raffle since.

------
rubzah
Why is it always timeshares? What makes them so ideal to sucker people with?
I've seen these scams all over the world.

~~~
glenneroo
I know a couple people who have timeshares in some prime vacation spots
(island, ski/hiking areas in the mountains) and they are quite practical when
you don't/can't buy/rent a property permanently, instead sharing it with 10+
other people, divvying up the weeks lottery-style and enjoying a few weekends
a year. It's also a motivation to plan for taking weekends off to just relax,
since you only get 1-2 windows of opportunity once or twice per year.

~~~
adrr
You can rent people's timeshares usually for the maintenance fee. If you
really want to own a timeshare, buy it on the secondary market for a fraction
of the cost.

------
hemmert
I once worked as a freelance graphic designer for a company that wanted to
give away a car as the first prize in a raffle. All promo material needed to
have huge amounts of fineprint, including that the winner - in order to get
the car - would have to sign a contract, forcing him to leave the company's
logo stickers on the car for two years, or pay a penalty of about 20% of the
car's value.

------
basicplus2
Even worse, i followed a lottery for a car to raise money for alzheimers.

On the draw date given on the ticket in the newspaper the notice said the draw
was delayed to a later date.

Dutifully i waited for that date and surprise surprise it was delayed again to
another new date.

Finally there was simply no notice of the draw being completed in rhe
newspaper on the last date specified..

------
deelowe
The gift tax section seems out of place. It has nothing to do with the rest of
the article.

~~~
lolsal
I think it's trying to drive home the point that even if you win some amount
of money, it can be misleading - $1000 is less than $1000 after taxes.

------
mlthoughts2018
It also reminds me of loyalty programs at department stores. I get so tired of
the disgusted look on the face of the cashier when they ask me if I want to
sign up for some clothing store loyalty card today to save 40% or something.
They can’t believe that the 40% discount on $50 isn’t enticing to yoke myself
to their stream of ads and even more intense data sharing than whatever they
are already getting from plain transactions.

------
willowwillow
Yeah... When I was in my early 20s I was gullible so I entered into those
"contests" a lot - and all that I got was telemarketers and junk mails.

------
1024core
> In simple terms: when you enter one of these contests, you’re allowing
> telemarketers to not only use your data to make robocalls in perpetuity, but
> sell it and share it with any “subsidiaries” it chooses.

They don't check if it is _you_ who's entering the information. What could go
wrong?

------
Theodores
The TV giveaways are also a con. You know the deal, you watch the whole show
because the competition details will be given at the end. Then the questions
are multiple choice and rather easy. For example, where is the final stage of
the Tour de France? Option a) Peterborough, option b) Potters Bar, option c)
Paris.

In this semi-fictional example if you get the answer right then you could get
to win a bicycle shaped object that looks like one of the bicycles ridden by
one of the top teams.

You might not be telemarketed to death in this instance but the text you send
will be to one of those premium rate numbers, to cost you £3 or so.

This money then goes to pay for the show, if you get 10000 people to text in
then that is real money, enough to pay for the interns and rent the camera
gear.

But it was not always like this. There was a time when the answers were
difficult. There was also a time when nobody knew what a search engine was
because they had not been invented yet. There was also a time when knowledge
might only exist in people's heads rather than only online. Questions for TV
shows could be difficult and the only way to enter might have been on a
postcard where you might also have to enter a 'tie breaker', e.g. 'bicycles
are best because...' (complete in less than ten words).

The tie breaker might not be there to just pick a winner from those that got
the question right, the show might honestly be looking for a slogan and
crowdsourcing it was a good way to pick more brains than just the production
crew.

Furthermore, the result or answer was something of interest to the viewers.
You could learn something. General knowledge was a thing back then, not
denigrated to 'trivia' or something you could get by using your favourite
search engine. General knowledge had value beyond the pub quiz.

In these former times, before 'Who wants to be a millionaire', it would have
been an insult to the audience to ask a noddy multiple choice question for a
competition.

Answering would not have been totally beyond the realms of possibility, you
might have to go to the local library, dig out Encyclopaedia Britannica and
get the answer from there. Or, if you knew your subject, then it might be
something you knew. So winning also meant that you did get 'respect' from your
peers and 'the world at large' for being clever enough to know the answer.
Winning might have been more valuable than the prize itself just for the
kudos. It wasn't as if some computer just selected your name at random in some
lottery of other mugs willing to gamble.

The funny thing though is how these things go full circle. The TV shows that
made the competition into something patronising and lame no longer get
viewers, or even interns. That intern can make more success for themselves
being a Youtube influencer and doing it all themselves. Rather than make the
tea and do the errands for the big fat producer they can do their own script,
presentation, camera-work and sound. they can also do their own competitions.
And, in their competitions they can give away some respectable loot and get
some genuine feedback from their fans. They can also avoid having to fleece
their fans of an SMS premium rate call, a like/subscribe/thumbs-up and comment
will be needed though. Even the question can be non-Google-able, fans might
know from watching the show what breed of dog their co-presenter owns, so that
could be a good quiz question. There need not be any bait-and-switch and the
car given away really can be an actual car that actually gets given away.

~~~
dingaling
> the text you send will be to one of those premium rate numbers

One of the curious laws in Northern Ireland requires postal entry to be an
option for all submission competitions hosted here.

So QRadio station advertises its 'win free money' competition, entry by a text
message costing £1.50, but also has to state that postal entry is possible. I
really should write a letter.

NI law also prohibits requiring purchase of an item as a condition for
entering competitions.

~~~
NLips
Not sure whether what you're describing is different; I understand UK law is
that you have to have free* entry as an option otherwise it's gambling, and
the company has different regulations plus a bunch more tax to pay. Most
companies therefore include a free option so they can avoid being classed as
gambling. Many actually have it online since that's cheaper to run than
reading post! Of course, the URL is not easy to find...

*or at least, something where the competetion runner doesn't make money from the entrant, so postal is fine even though you have to pay postage

~~~
jdietrich
_> I understand UK law is that you have to have free_* _entry as an option
otherwise it 's gambling_

The 2005 Gambling Act allowed a much wider range of promotional prize
competitions and draws. If the question is a genuine test of skill, you don't
need a free entry option (except in NI). If you do include a free entry option
then you don't need to bother with the trivial multiple-choice quiz, but the
free entry route needs to be publicised with equal prominence to the paid
entry route.

[http://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/PDF/Prize-
competitions-...](http://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/PDF/Prize-competitions-
and-free-draws-the-requirements-of-the-gambling-act-2005.pdf)

------
seymour333
I worked in one of these call centers just after high-school. Not even a
molecule of ethics existed in the entire company. My job involved getting
yelled at by people who were sick of getting calls from dozens of different
companies, and occasionally talking with someone gullible enough to come in
for a sales meeting, who would then yell at everyone involved once they
discovered they had been duped.

I can't remember exactly, but I think I eventually got fired because I started
to deviate from the script. Sometimes being honest with people, and sometimes
trolling angry people. It was a horrible job.

------
erikb
The really disappointing part here is that many, many more things are like
this. E.g. raises and promotions. Nowadays a lot of companies can't afford
these any more. But still on paper they offer these opportunities and even
really give promotions to 1-2 people of multiple dozens or hundreds, so that
you feel shitty about not getting one. Or dating websites that give
unattractive people hope that they can find a (-n attractive) partner if they
fill out 2 hours worth of forms and let the inputs run through an algorithm.

The best selling product is unrealistic hope.

------
theshadowknows
This sort of thing and the sorts of things Facebook and other companies do
really gives CRM and marketing a poor name. My team and I work in technical
CRM and we do what we can to give our customers actual relevant
advertisements. We also willingly collect only relevant data, don’t store it
indefinitely, and never purchase data. The social team gets cranky with us but
we have a core set of values that we don’t compromise even when upper
management gets pushy.

------
mleonhard
Is this article a very clever Facebook submarine marketing ad? It ends with a
false statement about Facebook providing instructions to delete data. I live
in USA and can't find any way to delete my browsing history that Facebook
collected via the Like button.

[http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

------
tlynchpin
My grandfather won a Cadillac, it was the 60's in San Francisco, and Regal gas
stations ran a contest, grand prize a shiny new Cadillac. The details are
lost, but as far as my dad knows it was a plain enter-to-win raffle, and his
dad won! Comin up slammin Cadillac doors, but they "weren't really a Cadillac
family" so they sold it.

------
exabrial
It really bothers me that people completely lack any sort of moral fortitude
they think overtly lying and deceiving people is "ok". The fact is, everyone
from the dealership to the call center employee knows whats going on and is a
willing participant in this scam.

------
svilen_dobrev
pff, there was some movie long ago, some technician was installing a few
1-armed-bandits in some pub, and asked the owner - should they give 1 win per
100, or 1 per 1000 ? And the owner answered: What? 1 per 1000? We're not a
charity here, there must be zero wins!

~~~
mschuster91
Having worked in casinos and actually owning a real, unrestricted gambling
machine (for laughs, tbh): that's bullshit. Gambling works because there is
always, always some machine that is paying out money. This one machine is
sufficient to get all other patrons to throw more and more money at them.

Sometimes all hell breaks loose and multiple or all machines pay out. The joke
is that most gamblers won't cash out and go home - they will "reinvest" their
entire win in hope to win more... and the really desperate ones throw even
more "fresh" money at them.

~~~
feintruled
You mentioned owning an 'unrestricted' gambling machine - I've always
wondered, do such machines have a setting to actually be fair (or I guess,
totally random?) Or is it always a matter of payout percentages?

~~~
mschuster91
"Unrestricted" in that most second-hand gambling machines are switched to a
"demo mode" which delivers unrealistic winning chances.

The situation with the modes is more complex in Germany:

\- "real", licensed casinos can carry the big ass slot machines. These have
very high limits, both in wins and losses, and can be centrally controlled by
the casino.

\- bars, "machine casinos" and other unlicensed venues carry the machines of
the kind which I have. On these you can lose (aka pay in) no more than 80€/h,
and win (aka pay out) no more than 500€/h. Which means: if you win e.g. 1000€,
you'll have to hang around for 2 hours to withdraw your win. Machines based on
the new rules (TR5) actually have even lower limits (80/400 loss/win). These
are mandated to only collect a certain amount of money - only 33€/hour used
should go as profits to the operator, the rest of the money paid in must be
distributed to the gamblers over time ("long term").

------
neya
The article mentions about GDPR, but I thought GDPR was mostly for online
businesses? How would GDPR affect an offline telemarketing company like this
one where almost all of your info are collected and processed to the fullest
possible unethical extent?

~~~
robin_reala
GDPR affects any organisation (not just businesses) that collects and
processes the personal data of people who reside in the EU. So yes, the same
rules would apply here, assuming the business deals with EU residents.

------
jcelerier
I've got a friend who actually won the car in the mall once. Not US though.

~~~
bvinc
In the 90s my brother almost won a car. It was legit because he was part of
the 10 finalists and the news media was there. They all drew keys out of a bag
and tried to start the car until one of them started it. The key he drew
didn't work.

------
ryen
And what happens after I read...

>What happens when your personal information gets sucked into an endless
marketing vortex?

... i'm prompted with a popup to enter my email address for a marketing
newsletter..

------
ddgflorida
Reminds me of the "Toy Yoda" lawsuit back in 2002 when a lady thought she won
a Toyota but instead got a yoda toy.

------
ibdf
I always thought there was a winner but assumed the winner was someone related
(family/friend) to the prize giver.

------
SubiculumCode
I heard a commercial advertising lawyers specializing in getting people out of
timeshares. Now I know why.

------
leoh
Arguably this is an allegory for so many things in the world

------
megamindbrian2
Same goes for the fishbowl of business cards at restaurants.

------
8bitsrule
Hey, it works for Facebook.

------
sirable
The boiler room tactics seem similar to Trump University. I believe that was
primarily targeted at retired people though.

 _edit_ in this case they had opportunity to meet Trump, which apparently
never happened

------
fwdpropaganda
> In the course of an hour on a Wednesday afternoon, 22 hopefuls fill out the
> digital form.

Lets take this hour to be an average hour. Over 12 hours in a day that the
mall is presumably open, that's 22*12 = 264 leads.

> the mall isn’t behind these giveaways; they merely rent out the advertising
> space (for around $1.5k per day).

This would imply that these leads need to be worth at least $1500/264 = $5.68
per lead. Does this look like too much to anyone else? I would have guessed
that independently of what they're selling, the conversion rate has to be
attrocious, as people signed-up not because of their interest for the thing
being sold but because they wanted a free car.

Maybe the reason why this works is that people who are stupid enough to give
out their names on a mall promotion, are probably also easy to push shit on.

EDIT: I forgot to add at least two other costs: they need to lease the car,
and they need to pay employees to keep an eye on everything. So that figure is
more of a lower bound.

~~~
sueders101
Don't forget to consider the revenue side of the equation. I imagine these
promotions wouldn't exist if they didn't make money, for at least a few,
business entities in the chain.

If they have:

0.3% conversion;

$25,000 average price;

20% margins

Which aren't unrealistic numbers for timeshares. They break even at $15 cost
per lead when ignoring call center costs and other overhead. It's pretty easy
to find people to work at an outbound call center for a campaign like this for
$9-$12 an hour. (that's without looking offshore) There's also the possibility
for additional revenue on customer financing and data resale.

When I was a very _very_ broke college student, I worked on cold calling
campaigns trying to set appointments to sell security systems. Now I do
analytics for a a business that is happy with doing outbound dials on $20 CPL
for largely semi-qualified leads. It ain't the most fulfilling work. But it
does pay well and the owners have never, and will never take outside
investment.

~~~
fwdpropaganda
> I imagine these promotions wouldn't exist if they didn't make money

That was my point.

~~~
sueders101
Ah, I misunderstood. You mentioned a $6 CPL as seeming like 'too much' and in
my experience it wouldn't be. I've seen targeted data request campaigns hit
that with generic survey data gathered from completely unrelated
businesses/industries.(Partially qualified warm transfers usually costing at
least 4-5 times that) Especially when factoring in the ease of, and revenue
gained from financing deals. After accounting for, what has to be, one of the
lowest costs for re-possession out of any industry; I wouldn't be surprised if
they made more money from loans that defaulted/sold to collections than
anything else.

------
casabarata
I wonder how this can be legal. I’ve seen the “free vacation” scams inside
malls and it’s really disturbing to see their practices

------
onewhonknocks
TANSTAAFL.

