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Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall (2018)

thehustle.co

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Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall (2018)

#141

Post by taneq »

TehCorwiz wrote: post #102
shon wrote: post #98

I actually gave away a Porsche 911. This was not a mall giveaway but a marketing experiment for my new startup: Flat 6 Club. Yes, we wanted something in return, in this case, we wanted you to buy a t-shirt or start a subscription (merch+content+events), which gives us essentially all the same info, which would enter you in a sweepstakes to win the car. We also wanted to promote the club, which we did. We researched i…

In a world where the deck is stacked against most people regardless whether they "do the right things" like go to college hope of a chance windfall may be the only way to reach beyond their economic situation. $9.11 saved per month isn't going to ever buy a car, but it might win one and that's an easy value proposition to some people.

That’s the thing that naïve expected value arguments miss - sometimes even though in the long run you’re better off not buying lotto tickets or insurance, we don’t live in the long run and often it’s worth sacrificing a bit of expected value to hedge against a potentially devastating loss, or create the tiny possibility of a life-altering windfall.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall (2018)

#142

Post by jimmux »

ggm wrote: post #88
chiph wrote: post #64

> There are other types of car giveaways run by more legitimate parties (charity raffles, event promotions) that do deliver the goods — but if you win, you’re liable to pay a hefty gift tax. I don't think it's a gift tax, but ordinary income tax. A coworker won a living room sofa set on a game show, and the staff were waiting with a 1099 for her as soon as she stepped off the stage. The IRS says you need to pay tax b…

In Australia, the thing called an "art union" used to be how to raise money for charity, and the prize was often a home, and they really exist, and people did win and live in them, and some of them were classics of the low spot of the 60s and 70s, shag-pile carpet, sunken entertainment pit, volcano-stone fireplace... They still take place. I suspect the buildings have moved with the (architectural) times.

They certainly aren't as common as they used to be, but I still see them. I think maybe Royal Life Saving Society still do it? Gold Coast apartments are typical properties now. I'll never enter though - not since they sold my details and I got spam calls for years.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall (2018)

#143

Post by Balgair »

ungamedplayer wrote: post #56
andrewstuart wrote: post #47

A 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.

Go 'Pies!

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall (2018)

#144

Post by [deleted] »

adrr wrote: post #130
stormbrew wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, "homeowner association fees" are just condo fees for places that aren't apartments. They seem even less likely to go towards anything useful than condo fees do though. But yes, that's true about property taxes. But since that's a commonality between condos and otherwise-individually-owned property it doesn't really matter. In a condo you pay both, but if you own outright you only pay one. In a rental you're k…

Condo home owners association control the fees. They go to insurance, money to replace common owned properly like the roof, exterior walls, paint, parking, landscape etc. You can go get elected and convince the board to not invest in these things and lower the fees. You can also vote to increase it to pay for things like to add solar. Did you ever look HOA financial docs that details exactly what the HOA spent money…

[deleted]

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall (2018)

#145

Post by saghm »

Railsify wrote: post #40
saghm wrote: post #34

> Patrick collects a rolodex of her (fake) data — full name, age, marital status — then tells her she has to be at least 28 to enter the drawing. “Tell your parent to call me,” he says, and hangs up. > Her “dad” (our writer, Conor) gives it one last try. Patrick tells Conor that in order to win the car, he has to go to a local Great Destinations office and attend a 90-minute timeshare presentation. This is the only p…

Wouldn't people over 28 be more likely to have money for a timeshare?

Yes, and that's why I asked if the intention of limiting the scam to people 28 and above was about filtering people unlikely to be able to pay for them

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall (2018)

#146

Post by stormbrew »

adrr wrote: post #130
stormbrew wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, "homeowner association fees" are just condo fees for places that aren't apartments. They seem even less likely to go towards anything useful than condo fees do though. But yes, that's true about property taxes. But since that's a commonality between condos and otherwise-individually-owned property it doesn't really matter. In a condo you pay both, but if you own outright you only pay one. In a rental you're k…

Condo home owners association control the fees. They go to insurance, money to replace common owned properly like the roof, exterior walls, paint, parking, landscape etc. You can go get elected and convince the board to not invest in these things and lower the fees. You can also vote to increase it to pay for things like to add solar. Did you ever look HOA financial docs that details exactly what the HOA spent money…

In the condo I owned? Yes, I became quite familiar with how the money was spent, and most of it was in principle logical for the building it was in, and the board wasn't doing anything unethical or anything like that.

It was, unfortunately, just a very bad situation for the building, which was aging poorly from its origins as a low unit count high value building with a lot of expensive amenities, windows that couldn't handle changing climate, a parkade that needed deep structural work, having been built when asbestos was in vogue, and a population that was once wealthy but was now largely on fixed incomes and declining property value.

No one did anything wrong (except maybe a few attempts to fix the parkade in overly optimistic and superficial ways that required re-fixing at more expense later), it just wasn't worth condo fees ballooning well past my mortgage payments and it ended up costing well hundreds of $k to sell and doing so was one of the most stressful times of my life.

None of that means "condos are always bad". Just this one was a mistake.

If you mean what I said about HOA vs condo fees, I've only ever seen HOA used for detached homes or townhouses, where the common concerns are a lot less critical than in an apartment building (and so, from what I know, tend to be more frivolous). But maybe it's used differently elsewhere.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall (2018)

#147

Post by WesolyKubeczek »

In Slovakia, there was a sweepstakes of sorts (required some skills) where the main prize was a car. Which in fact turned out to be a loan of the said car for three months.

On the other hand, my first laptop ever was a sweepstakes win in 2007. It wasn't a very good laptop, but it was an honest win.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall (2018)

#148

Post by petre »

vkou wrote: post #135
winternett wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry, they've mostly moved on to selling crypto and NFTs for the most part... I haven't seen a car parked in my local mall for ages, there's a bitcoin ATM parked in that space now. There's a certain breed of huckster that even if they designated a prize winner, it would be one of their family members. The most important part of managing scams is to expose them, and cite the names involved so that they need to…

> The most important part of managing scams is to expose them, Yes, because their targets will be reading Hacker News. The Nigerian Prince scam still works , and every person in the world has heard of it by now. > and cite the names involved so that they need to pick a different line of work. I don't think they value their public image half as much as you seem to think. But you're on to something. What if the alterna…

What about Booking.com car rental scams where any issue on your part could make you legally part with your funds?

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall (2018)

#150

Post by ggm »

michaelhoney wrote: post #134
ggm wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Australia, the thing called an "art union" used to be how to raise money for charity, and the prize was often a home, and they really exist, and people did win and live in them, and some of them were classics of the low spot of the 60s and 70s, shag-pile carpet, sunken entertainment pit, volcano-stone fireplace... They still take place. I suspect the buildings have moved with the (architectural) times.

I think you mean the apogee of architectural refinement. I would love an entertainment pit.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5473090/ (swingin' safari: 2018) is a coming-of-age film set in Australia, which includes an exploding whale, Guy Pearce, Kylie Minogue, and a beautiful shag-pile den with sunken pit. It was shot on the GC.
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