1. Vehicle marketing and 2. personal information and demographics collection for resale preying on the magical thinking of people who play the lottery as wishful
thinking in order to better their circumstances.
Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall (2018)
161–170 of 264 posts
Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall (2018)
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because the fundamental economics of time shares are a scam. They are pitched as "ownership" but what they really are are perpetual rental contracts with no way out. (The rent is called "maintenance fees" but it doesn't matter what label you attach to it. It's a sum of money that you are obligated to pay year after year after year. If it quacks like rent...) And you even have to pay a hefty sum up front for the privi…
Most of what you've described can also be applied to condominiums. The only difference is that you can occupy them year round, but I don't think that's a relevant difference. Are the "fundamental economics" of those also "a scam"?
I’m on the board of my condo’s HOA and can see where every dollar of my fees get spent. It’s pretty much entirely going into maintenance of the building.
Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall (2018)
#163A friend of the family recently won a million dollar house in the hospital raffle. It was a house on the Gold Coast in Queensland, which he immediately sold. I think he might also have won $20,000 of gold bullion in another hospital raffle. And off topic but my brother won a years supply of Kentucky Friend Chicken in the footy tipping..... and he is a vegetarian. Imagine that - you win the sacrifice of 365 chickens f…
When you say 'footie' that makes me think you are Australian. "Raffles" in australia have very specific legal requirements.
> When you say 'footie'
No one says 'footie' in Australia. We say 'footy'.
Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall (2018)
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just get a STEM degree and it’s hard to do poorly afterwards.
I would disagree. There are several sections of STEM where there really isnt much for you. What are you supposed to achieve with a bachelors in physics?
The exact same thing as a bachelor's in CS? You hardly need a CS degree to work in most tech jobs.
Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall (2018)
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. I've never gotten a phone call from McDonald's.
Of course you've never gotten a phone call from McDonald's, but EVERYONE has gotten a scam phone call.
I have, but I assume they were just wardialing. I don't think I've ever gotten a scam call where they actually knew my name or DOB or anything else that could be associated with the info I put into the McDonald's app (presumably that's what they would be selling... just the existence of a phone # isn't particularly interesting I'd guess)
Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall (2018)
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just get a STEM degree and it’s hard to do poorly afterwards.
I would disagree. There are several sections of STEM where there really isnt much for you. What are you supposed to achieve with a bachelors in physics?
> What are you supposed to achieve with a bachelors in physics
Start an internet payment, space exploration, electronic vehicle, tunnel boring, or direct brain-computer interface company.
The mean ROI on a bachelors in physics is probably the highest in STEM.
Apparently, they're also popular on Wall Street
Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall (2018)
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just get a STEM degree and it’s hard to do poorly afterwards.
I would disagree. There are several sections of STEM where there really isnt much for you. What are you supposed to achieve with a bachelors in physics?
It might differ between countries, but I've found that physics is one of the most valued degrees. It's a demonstration of problem-solving skills that are very desirable for a variety of jobs (e.g. software development).
Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall (2018)
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
College is no guarantee of anything anymore. Many schools and degrees don't even have a positive ROI.
Just get a STEM degree and it’s hard to do poorly afterwards.
> Just get a STEM degree and it’s hard to do poorly afterwards.
Wait until the winds of the economic climate change their direction again; until this moment, celebrate and post such texts on HN that will become bad advice.
Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall (2018)
#169Welcome to the ecosystem of lead-generation, and the specialized marketing campaigns which drive business sales. One of my earliest technical jobs was writing the middle-ware systems that handled lead data, and tracked the sales conversion rates of the companies we served. As an aside, it is the worst job I ever had in any of my careers… In general, you are never dealing with a single company: 1. An advertiser operat…
I do the same thing with every cold-call power-sales phone call I get. I try to keep them on the line as long as possible, while paying as little attention as possible.
Put the phone on speaker, turn down the volume a little, and carry on working on my computer.
I feel that the only way to end spam (email and phone), is to take up as much time of the spammer as possible.
If all 25m recipients of an email scam replied with the intention to drag it out as long as possible, the scammer will never identify those who actually fell for it.
If all 25m recipients of a phishing email responded with poisoned data, the target bank would quickly realise what was happening.
If everyone who ever receives a spam phone call kept the person on for 30m instead of dismissing the call in 5s, it would be unprofitable to make these calls.
In general, dropping the ROI on these techniques to negative would stop them.
Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall (2018)
#170"
“[When I declined], they proceeded to tell our 12 year old daughter, ‘I guess your parents won’t take you on your dream vacation!’” she says. Then, they handed over her “prize:” a $25 restaurant voucher that required a $100 minimum spend to redeem.
"
Muricans are insane... Do this to me in françe I WRECK you in middle the mall in public taking some free palms in face :)