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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

#101

Post by drawkbox »

vinceguidry wrote: post #94
drawkbox wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As mentioned, this is only asked of winners to collect their prize, after the draw. If they won they must be contacted to verify and get info to send them the prize. Since it is a transfer of value, the SSN has to be known for the 1099 form that is required by the IRS after $600 in value being transferred. It is also required if the sponsor gives it as a gift, pays the tax portion and for the sponsor to expense it ou…

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 maybe they didn't think it was worth it. Cash prizes are always easier as the person can just pay the taxes out of the prize, a product like a motorcycle or something fairly big, they would have to sell to pay taxes maybe.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#102

Post by robin_reala »

bkor wrote: post #69
beaconstudios wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for an alternative viewpoint, I'm from the UK and I see these car sweepstake scams all over the place. I think the region you're in has a strong impact on what the police's priorities are, due to different leadership.

> I'm from the UK[..] I think the region you're in has a strong impact on what the police's priorities are, due to different leadership. Totally agree! The few times I compare ads on television from Netherlands vs England the difference is huge. There's a huge amount of gambling advertisement in England. Advertising regarding something that's addicting is often quickly restricted in The Netherlands. Secondly the loan…

It’s not just the UK in Europe though. Sweden is worse for gambling advertising than the UK ever has been, at least 2/3rds of evening TV adverts here are for online casinos.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#104

Post by userbinator »

blowski wrote: post #13

Another shady “competition” is the “complete this form and get a laptop”. Except it’s not just this form, it’s this form, and this form, and this form, and this form... until the user gives up. Each of those forms goes to a sales call list. And when you give up, you’ve already completed half a dozen forms - and you’ve given all that data for free. If somebody does ever complete all of the forms, they get told the lap…

I know some people who automated those but basically fed them fake generated data, and managed to make quite a bit before they got banned. Probably not legal, but AFAIK the responses to those surveys aren't legally binding either, and the more "poisoned the well", the less profiling and tracking they can do, so I don't have any moral problems with that.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#106

Post by wmeredith »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #90
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm fairly sure there's federal laws that forbid that. Of course, it's not a crime if you don't get caught. Plus there's a small sub-story in the article about someone that did win a Tesla, but couldn't afford the taxes they had to pay to actually get it. You can win a car but you have to be able to pay taxes and insurance for it, too.

In my experience, it's quite common to have raffles and similar events rigged. I've heard of lots of companies that have booths at conferences where they scan your badge for a """chance""" to win some prize. Then they look up each person's credentials, and if someone is high up in a company that they wish to establish communications with, they give that person a prize to get their foot in the door.

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.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#107

Post by Merthurian »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #90
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm fairly sure there's federal laws that forbid that. Of course, it's not a crime if you don't get caught. Plus there's a small sub-story in the article about someone that did win a Tesla, but couldn't afford the taxes they had to pay to actually get it. You can win a car but you have to be able to pay taxes and insurance for it, too.

In my experience, it's quite common to have raffles and similar events rigged. I've heard of lots of companies that have booths at conferences where they scan your badge for a """chance""" to win some prize. Then they look up each person's credentials, and if someone is high up in a company that they wish to establish communications with, they give that person a prize to get their foot in the door.

Pretty clever

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#108

Post by Angostura »

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 was watching the gullible filling out their "loan applications" and setting themselves up for $500/month for the next ten to twenty years before they could pay off the 'loan'.

I presume that quite a few of these are actually timeshare employees playing the role of "conspicuously convinced punter"

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#109

Post by erikb »

rubzah wrote: post #81

Why is it always timeshares? What makes them so ideal to sucker people with? I've seen these scams all over the world.

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 some people trying to cheat others.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#110

Post by glenneroo »

m_fayer wrote: post #57
extradego wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the USA, this is just how it’s done. I’m not exaggerating; this is business as usual . Penalizing this would be a catastrophe for Americans. I think the sheer volume of the tricks, lies, gimmicks and gotchas cause each one bleed into the next to the point of immersion. The shimmer of the spectacle and hope become one and the same. Because every day is just another swindle at the Big Bazaar Of Life.

A decade ago I would have thought your comment was over the top. Then I moved to Germany. And was surprised to find an utter lack of spammy phone calls, no crowd of ubiquitous scammers vying for my attention, no surprise mystery medical bills, nothing. I was with my German girlfriend in a department store once, she tore a little slip off the stockings she was buying, put her name and email on it, and dropped it into…

I have more or less the same story moving to Austria. I get spammy calls but they are actually legit surveys (quality of life, political leanings, newspaper preferences, etc) and only because I gave up my phone number at a party many years ago and haven't bothered to have it removed. I get once of these survey calls about every 3-6 months and if I'm not in the mood I just tell them I don't have time and they never call back. On occasion they ask if they could call back at a later date.

Re: winning things - I won 500 Euro from Visa for entering a contest, where the only requirements were to fill out the online form with my name, age and email address, followed by using my Visa card 3 times in one month any of the following 3 months. I should note that Visa the company here doesn't actually function as a credit card like in the U.S., rather it's directly connected to your bank account, where at the end of the month any balance due is automatically deducted. If your account drops below zero, you just pay some interest at the end of the month. From my basic research (looking at my bank statements for the past 2 years), it's extremely low. In fact looking at my last "25% KEST" charges, I was in minus for 3 months last year, and the charge was 0,02 euro cents. I honestly have no idea how that works, but I assume we have some good consumer protections in place.

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