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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

#361

Post by astura »

gregpilling wrote: post #222
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…

There are companies that specialize in insuring risks like that. It is a whole sub industry of insuring unlikely to win contests. https://www.holeinoneinsurance.com/how-much-does-it-cost.htm...

Prize indemnity insurance!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prize_indemnity_insurance

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#362

Post by fl0wenol »

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…

Car stereos became an aftermarket industry with upgrade-able and louder components at the same time that boomboxes appeared on the American market; they were parallel industries, driven by the advent of cheap transistor-based amplifiers in the mid-70s.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#363

Post by Symbiote »

FireBeyond wrote: post #336
bane wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This was a big scam on the Gold Coast in Australia in the 80s and 90s, and my parents milked it. First thing you need to know is that any major contract in Australia had a "72 hour cooling off period" in which you could cancel it with no redress or regress. Want a cheap holiday? Bring your kids to the Gold Coast, look up the best time share resort, Friday morning,sit through the spiel, sign on the line that is dotted…

My parents did the mini-version, just taking advantage for the day.

We went to several in southern England. We kids could play in the pool or whatever, while our parents sat through a presentation for a couple of hours. Then we spent the rest of the day together, before heading home.

Though more recently, "The EU has ruled that any new timeshares or long-term holiday products with contracts of more than a year must be sold with a 14-day cooling-off period and written information – in the buyer's first language – detailing their right to cancel within this period must be provided.", so your scheme would work especially well now.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#364

Post by freehunter »

uniformlyrandom wrote: post #290
freehunter wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's illegal to rent space to businesses you know to be conducting illegal activities. The mall operator can't rent space to a drug dealer or arms dealer, they can't rent a brothel, they can't rent space to human traffickers. Mall operators are not common carriers.

>illegal activities > arms dealer I appreciate your political views, but this one is perfectly legal in United States, and will hopefully stay this way.

Selling nukes and biological/chemical warfare agents and other things that "arms dealers" provide is not legal in the US. Gun shop owners are not commonly referred to as "arms dealers".

But thanks for shoehorning your political views into an unrelated conversation.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#365

Post by astura »

mgr86 wrote: post #359
technofiend wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Something like that was happening in New England this spring "Buy anything at Jordan’s Furniture starting today and it will all be FREE, if the Red Sox pitch a No Hitter, home or away, after July 17th during the regular season. That is 64 games! There is an average of 3 ½ No Hitters pitched each year."[0] [0] http://www.furnituretoday.com/article/551925-if-red-sox-pitc...

Jordans Furniture does those promotions every year. They are different events though every year. The insurance company paid out $30 million in furniture when the Red Sox won the World Series in 2007.

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/PersonalFinance/story?id=377...

Funny enough, Jordans Furniture is owned by Berkshire Hathaway.

Last year Cleveland was treated to $1.7 million in free windows from Universal Windows Direct when the Cleveland Indians went on a 15 game winning streak.

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/20623379/local-window-com...

If you're wondering about premiums, the first article quotes a guy in the business who say the premiums are usually around 30% of the value of the prize. That means the $75,000 premium paid by Universal Windows Direct was a steal. Of course, the odds of a 15 game winning steak in baseball are very small.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#366

Post by chipotle_coyote »

logfromblammo wrote: post #337
im3w1l wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between a $200 mattress and the best in the world is way less than 1h per night.

Not to mention that I have taken some pretty rockin' naps in hammocks of various sizes, the cheapest of which was $4.99, and packed down into a twist of netting smaller than my fist. But to be fair, the two appropriately-spaced trees required for that one were not included. The mattress is by no means the only way to get a complete and restful night of sleep, and past a certain materials threshold, you can't get long…

I think that there is probably a bigger difference in sleep quality between a $300 mattress and a $500 mattress than between the $500 mattress and a $3000 mattress.

That seems awfully likely to me, too. I paid around $650 for a full-sized Sealy pillowtop something-or-other, apparently aimed at the hotel market, from an online mattress store some years ago, and it's been fine -- at least as comfortable as the ($800 in the early 1990s) Stearns & Foster it replaced. It's possible the Sealy won't last as long as the S&F did -- at least back then, the latter had a reputation for top-notch build quality -- but I have a lot of trouble envisioning any mattress in that size class being worth over $1000, let alone $3000.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#367

Post by pascalxus »

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…

Yeah. I thought we could just go there to listen to it. they didn't say anything about a timeshare, they just said go there to listen to them talk about some apartments. I sounded pretty harmless.

Things started off politely enough. Then about 30 minutes in they get really mean, really fast. this was wyndham by the way - if you check online, looks like they have nothing but 1 star reviews, from those that did sign up.

It starts with manipulation, then insults on your intelligence, then move onto insults on your personality, followed by countless bullying tactics. Then, once that doesn't work, they call over some ruthless thug boss lady, to really intimidate and bully you. These guys are world class jerks. i don't know how they sleep at night.

Once they realize that they can't get you, they'll just keep beating you up, just for kicks.

Boy, that's got to be a stressful job.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#368

Post by unclebucknasty »

technofiend wrote: post #245
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…

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.

Seems that it would violate the "no purchase necessary" rule most (all?) states require to avoid it being an illegal lottery.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#369

Post by astura »

csomar wrote: post #58
coldtea wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Prohibited: "Failing to award and distribute all prizes of the value and type represented." They can't mock-award it to someone of their own?

My experience is that there needs to be a special attorney that oversees the selection of the winner.

Independent companies that conduct drawings do exist. Random.org does them, for example: https://www.random.org/draws/

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#370

Post by JackCh »

freehunter wrote: post #364
uniformlyrandom wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>illegal activities > arms dealer I appreciate your political views, but this one is perfectly legal in United States, and will hopefully stay this way.

Selling nukes and biological/chemical warfare agents and other things that "arms dealers" provide is not legal in the US. Gun shop owners are not commonly referred to as "arms dealers". But thanks for shoehorning your political views into an unrelated conversation.

Has there ever actually been a confirmed case of a nuclear warhead being sold by an arms dealer?
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