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Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

thehustle.co

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Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#151

Post by bane »

pwg wrote: post #99
quickthrower2 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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…

I went to one to satisfy the same sort of morbid fascination as well. I really have to hand it to the sales people, it was one of the most incredible sales pitches I've ever seen.

They shuttled us to one of their premier properties where they took us to a sales room and served us breakfast. After a few moments they had everybody gather around a large presentation screen and a salesman who spent the next hour not just going over all the "benefits" of buying a timeshare, but tying that to a scripted and intensely acted "deeply personal", tear jerking story that ranged through decades of his life. The delivery was world class small stage acting -- it was that impressive. After that they paired us all off with a secondary sales guy who took us to a model room and start on the normal high pressure sales tactics.

Our only escape was that we simply lied about our income and looked to be too poor to ever afford anything they had on offer and told them we were only interested in vacationing to places they didn't have a presence. It was quite an intense experience. We left, got our free tickets to a show and were shuttled back to where it all started about 3 hours earlier.

It was absolutely bizarre and I kind of can't believe the entire operation is legal.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#152

Post by polynomial »

cornholio wrote: post #33
Animats wrote: post #9

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…

The car is surrounded by posters that read "Enter to win" above a picture of a white vehicle otherwise similar to the blue car physically present. There is absolutely no doubt that ideogram promises a chance to win the car in exchange for the registration.

> There is absolutely no doubt that ideogram promises a chance to win the car in exchange for the registration.

While a naive person may make that inference, a rational person may understand that 'ideogram' does not constitute an assertion that the picture depicts the prize to be won.

I sure don't mean to defend such predatory scammers, but I'm pretty sure they are legally safe on that part.

I had a friend last year who got very excited when she "won a car" and I had to talk her down when she said all she had to do was make an inconveniently long drive to a shopping mall to claim it / have her prize "verified."

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#153

Post by jdietrich »

feintruled wrote: post #125
TheReveller wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is similar to the reason that household brands have such terrible packaging design. It's a form of price differentiation - if you can afford the more expensive version you'll avoid the ugly one just because it doesn't look nice.

I've always been amused by Sainsbury's tactics - as well as the bland and unattractive packaging for their value brands, they also add a little passive-aggressive slogan that slightly throws some shade on their own product (and perhaps by association, you). For example, value wipes have "Not quite as thick, but cleans up quick". Value peas have something like "A little smaller, but just as tasty!" https://thetab.com/…

>Of course the joke is all the products are indistinguishable out of the packet as no doubt they come from the same production lines and they aren't likely to tool up to make deliberately inferior versions if that would cost extra

That's absolutely not the case. It's definitely economical to make slightly inferior versions for the value brand. If you read the ingredients, you can see where they've cut costs. For example, the ordinary own-brand chocolate digestives are 27% chocolate, while the Basics brand digestives are 24% chocolate.

Basics pasta is made from an inferior grade of wheat, Basics peanut butter is bulked out with 8% vegetable oil, Basics tin foil is very slightly thinner. It seems like a trivial difference, but it equates to millions of pounds a year across the entire product range. The major supermarkets and their manufacturing partners are incredibly good at finding marginal cost savings.

Supermarkets really want you to buy their own-brand products, because the margins are far better than on branded goods. I believe that the slogans used by Sainsburys are playing on quite a subtle psychological effect - by signposting how they saved money, they reduce the sense that the product is suspiciously cheap.

Low-cost airlines like Ryanair have deliberately cultivated an image of conspicuous thrift. We intuitively interpret the second-tier airports with crappy facilities, the tatty seat upholstery and the ugly websites as signals of trustworthiness, because we can see where the corners have been cut to save money. In some sense, we want to get shafted on baggage fees or sold a scratchcard by a surly flight attendant, because it allays our fears that they have scrimped on engine maintenance or hired a load of ex-Aeroflot pilots.

https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/shop/gb/groceries/chocolate-bis...

https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/shop/gb/groceries/sainsburys-mi...

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#154

Post by sumedh »

glenneroo wrote: post #148
sumedh wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rather it's directly connected to your bank account, So a debit card?

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, s…

> 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)

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#155

Post by vinceguidry »

drawkbox wrote: post #101
vinceguidry wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution I came up with is to have the winner come into a store location to claim their prize. They can see their brand new motorcycle, be told that to drive this away we need to report the gift to the IRS so they can collect their cut. I think most people will give up the digits then.

Good solution if local, most of the winners were all over the US. Lots of people just didn't believe it and thought it to be a scam or maybe denied it due to the taxes, or maybe they were trying to stay on the down low due to collections or something who knows. For whatever reason, they didn't want the prize or didn't believe it. Since it wasn't a cash prize in most cases, people would have to pay some taxes on it so…

I wonder if it would be worth starting a business brokering access to bricks and mortar for your industry. I'm sure you could find some national chains that have retail traffic that could take delivery of a prize and collect the relevant details.

Then it becomes a problem where you need assurance that the customer is going to actually show up at the store and claim his prize before you go to the trouble of shipping it out. Not a big deal.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#156

Post by jsjohnst »

asfdsfggtfd wrote: post #100
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems so obvious now you've pointed it out. I do like to over complicate things.

This is the advice given by banks and anti-fraud agencies. NB in some countries landlines can remain on a call for several minutes after the call receiver has hung up. A phisher will play a dial tone etc to make it seem realistic. The advice is to either wait 10 minutes (longer?) or preferably call back on another line if you receive a suspicious call.

> NB in some countries landlines can remain on a call for several minutes after the call receiver has hung up.

Source for this? I find it highly suspect from a technical perspective (1-3 seconds, maybe, but not several minutes) and nothing I can find online even remotely seems legitimate / real.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#157

Post by 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?

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#158

Post by chucksmash »

NLips wrote: post #35
DanBC wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anyone wants to listen to an example of a somewhat difficult quiz programme they could try Brain of Britain - a long running radio show on BBC Radio 4. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00813s0 I don't know if it's geo-blocked, or if there's anything available for download. But they do have written questions too.

This show is verging on ridiculous for me - I am so out of my depth listening to it. But I appreciate that the BBC produce it for those who like it. Other quizes of various difficulties include University Challenge, and Mastermind. Both have a priceless prize for the winner.

Likewise. I'm usually at least decent at general knowledge quizzes and was more than 20 questions into the episode I picked before I knew an answer 100%.

The episodes available in the US at the GP's link are all Semi-Finals and Finals. Could any regular listeners comment as to whether they tweak the difficulty for the tournament or if it's always such a relentlessly high bar?

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#159

Post by test6554 »

MatthewWilkes wrote: post #15

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.

I switched to reader view in safari and that fixed the modal right up.
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