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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

#211

Post by ben509 »

polynomial wrote: post #152
cornholio wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

The law isn't based on a "rational" person, but a "reasonable" one, that is the judgement of an ordinary person with typical life experiences. That's why you're tried by a jury of your peers, not of logicians, lawyers or ethicists.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#212

Post by nickik »

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…

How would you even regulated that? This is the sort of detailed complex gray-zone law that is hard to define and harder to enforce.

A more general increase in the power of contract and what the need to include to make them valid.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#213

Post by joering2 »

throwaway080383 wrote: post #170
erikb wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the investments no normal person with a healthy common sense would even consider to invest in. So if you see "timeshare" and are not dropping the flyer into the trash can, that already says that you are open to getting screwed over. It's like the "African prince died, gives you $10 mio if you give us your credit card details". That said, there is nearly no game or investment that doesn't at least have…

So in practice, I know this is true, but in principle, splitting a vacation property 52 ways so that everyone gets one week a year actually seems pretty reasonable. Why is it that these things are always scams?

They are NOT always scams, they just have bad reputation because of possibility of abuse.

There are plenty of good management companies that run thousands of timeshare units. My family pays for 3 and all are in perfect shape, own private beach access, gives access to nice cars (that are changed to new every 2 years) and have very strict rules on participants. No, you cannot just crash place with your friends and call the day; the penalties are harsh and good timeshare management will match you with people interested in similar lifestyle. They are much much cheaper than price of tickets / setting up vacation trip and the thought alone that maximum 52 people (versus 365 in hotel room) per year slept in that bed and took a dump in that toilet is a very comfortable one :)

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#214

Post by gambiting »

drawkbox wrote: post #47

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 su…

I was one of the very first developers with an app published on Google Play store, and as a "thank you" for having one of the first apps with 10k+ downloads(which wasn't difficult when number of apps on the store was measured in hundreds), Google wanted to send me the Nexus One phone - which was great, except that the email I got from them looked like scam, it was basically "hey you won a phone, click on this link and fill out this google spreadsheet with your details!" - no official google logo, it was just plain text email and the spreadsheet looked dodgy as hell. So I ignored it, until I read about the giveaway on a reputable site few days later - and yeah, I filled out the sheet and the phone arrived few weeks later. But it was very very easy to ignore it.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#215

Post by 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.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#216

Post by TomVDB »

emacdona wrote: post #190
hutzlibu wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, but you would be wasting your time - unless you all enjoy it.

Right, in order for you not to be wasting your time, you'd have to get some value from attending. I think you could argue for any of the following: (a) educational, (b) entertainment, (c) charity work, or (d) none of the above. Depends on the person...

(e) Free tickets for some event (which is very often the hook to get you into the door)

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#217

Post by [deleted] »

acomjean wrote: post #192
polynomial wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 po…

[deleted]

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#218

Post by NLips »

jsjohnst wrote: post #156
asfdsfggtfd wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Telecoms + networking software engineer here:

'tis true - the caller has call release control on the PSTN i.e. the call doesn't end until the caller puts down the phone. There's special handling for e.g. 911 calls so that call release control is given to the callee i.e. the PSAP.

This doesn't work for e.g. SIP because the SIP client is not a dumb slave to the network. If I click end call, even if the network doesn't 'want' to end the call, my phone thinks the call has ended.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#219

Post by toss1 »

astura wrote: post #138
drawkbox wrote: post #47

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 su…

This seems like an easy problem to solve. Make the winner fill out the tax forms and send them directly to the IRS. The IRS informs the promotion they've received the tax forms, and verifies names, addresses, amount match. The promotion releases the prize to the winner.

Might not be so easy -- it is like paying payroll -- you, not only the recipient, need to report the tax ID of the person/entity that you paid.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#220

Post by rayiner »

lysp wrote: post #215

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 qu…

> They came back quite drunk

> They walked away with the car.

Hopefully they did walk.

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