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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

#191

Post by pwg »

justinclift wrote: post #127
pwg wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

As a thought, you might find Robert Cialdini's book "Influence" useful: https://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Rober... He gave a talk covering the same subject matter too, which is faster to grok if that's your kind of thing. After reading/watching this stuff, these kind of scams become incredibly transparent. And it's fairly ugh to see fellow humans subsequently get sucked in by them.

Thanks. I'll check it out. I'm quite immune to the tactics myself due to watching my father fall for way too many of them growing up. As a result of seeing that at an early age I've become quite immune to the tactics. But I could easily see how the less immune could readily be drawn in to something they likely could not afford.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#192

Post by acomjean »

polynomial wrote: post #178
analogmemory wrote: post #37

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…

What's a boombox?

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

google image search https://www.google.com/search?q=boombox+80s&source=lnms&tbm=...

vector stock: https://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vector/vintage-cass...

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#193

Post by sanderjd »

pknopf wrote: post #163
pwg wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'm all for capitalism, but I feel like this should be illegal. Yes, I know, "the consumers shouldn't be so dumb". But there is always the group of a society that will bite. The seller may make a good buck, but these tactics have many downstream effects that just get compounded for the people buying this garbage. There should be some kind of protection for the consumers in this case. I know it would be hard to define…

The biggest problem here is information asymmetry. The market for these time share schemes is very inefficient because the sales people have more information on both the value and cost than the customers. This is why people commenting here who have out of band information about this were unpersuaded despite finding the pitch emotionally compelling / exhausting. Regulations to require earlier and less subtle cost disclosure would help. But this is right in the zone where it's difficult to take political action: most people don't care very much about this so you can't win an election or build a career on fighting this, and the sales companies care a lot, so they'll organize a dedicated opposition to you if you try.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#194

Post by jacquesm »

cbg0 wrote: post #7
ktal wrote: post #6

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?

One more spam e-mail won't bother them too much when they think they can win a car for it.

It's never just 'one spam email'. You end up on a list, the list will end up being sold many times over, also to other list creators and in the end you will get 100's if not 1000's of messages, probably you will still be receiving messages long after you're dead.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#195

Post by ghaff »

djsumdog wrote: post #149
wmeredith wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just a modern version of the fishbowl of business cards. You put out the bowl and say drop in your card to win “x”. Then when it’s time to do the drawing you look through the cards to see who’s the most advantageous person to establish contact with.

Huh. I never realized that's what those were for.

The whole point of badge scans/fishbowls is to collect leads. That said, especially at larger companies, legal departments are likely to be unhappy if they learn that trade show contests are being rigged.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#196

Post by breischl »

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 of the Wyndham presentations a couple years back, partially for the free (albeit shitty) breakfast, free tickets to a local attraction (actually somewhat valuable) and to observe the sales pitch. I came away similarly impressed.

They used a lot of tactics like personal vacation stories, highly suspect financial calculations and so forth. But the one I was most impressed by was getting people in the habit of saying "yes!" a lot. They'd ask a bunch of really dumb stuff like "Do you like to go on vacation?!", "Do you like to have FUN?!", "Do you like to SAVE MONEY?!" etc to get people all hyped up. Then they'd ask them if they want a timeshare, and people are primed to say yes. There's some actual psychological studies on that effect. It worked really well.

They also had our credit card info already because we were staying in another Wyndham property, and kept saying that we'd have to sign some form or else they'd charge our card for the tickets. Of course they made it difficult to get that form. You can get it after we tour one of the model units. You can get it after we look at another one. You can have it after we watch this video. Sure, you can have it now, but first let's look at this financial worksheet. Always being super nice to make it hard to be assertive with them. I finally had to basically curse at the sweet young lady to get the form out of them, but they managed to tack on 45 minutes of high pressure sales time over and above the minimum we had to spend.

It's all quite impressive in a "dark patterns" sort of way.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#197

Post by ghaff »

jetti wrote: post #189

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 ga…

Quite a long time ago, I went to a big ski show and being younger and more foolish than I am today I filled out a bunch of contest entries. I was positively bombarded with "you've won a free vacation" sorts of calls and mails for the next year or two. All I had to do was listen to some timeshare pitch.

I never actually did but I'm sure it would have been similar. I've met a few people who at least convinced themselves they liked their timeshares but the idea never appealed to me.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#198

Post by acomjean »

jetti wrote: post #189

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 ga…

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.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#199

Post by 13of40 »

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…

A couple of years ago my wife and I rented a condo in Hawaii, and ended up going to one of those one morning. Coincidentally, it turned out to be at the same complex we were renting from and the example unit we toured was identical to our own. We walked out when I did the math and found that the time share would have actually cost more than just renting the place.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#200

Post by amorphid »

analogmemory wrote: post #37

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…

My parents got one of those from a timeshare, too. It wqs given to me as my first stereo.
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