Sweepstakes promises might fool the unwary
We are warned of scams, schemes to get your money. I have yet to read of sweepstakes scams.
My wife is on some master list. She has received almost daily letters with an enlarged $6525 saying, “Congratulations, you have been given a number making you eligible to win $6525, in a lump sum or monthly. Just send us your check to (charitable fund) and you may win $6525.”
They say you don’t need to make the donation to win, but you think it helps. They don’t say you have only one in 6,000 chances to win. You think you have been “selected” to win.
Now the letter has changed. The large figure is $3,225,750, “pledged,” and your new number guarantees your eligibility to win.
“Buy a home, new car and take those trips you have dreamed of.” No charity; just send $25 administrative cost. They don’t tell you your odds are one in 3 million to win.
There must be thousands of folks, especially old ones, who think they have already won, not just that they are “eligible.”
The law should require such letters to give the arithmetical odds against your winning.
Dick Douglas
Greensboro
Comments (2)
To report abuse of the comment feature on this site, please use the feedback form at the bottom of any page.
it use to be you could return junk mail .. simply scratch "return" and draw a big arror to the original sender. They changed the law so that is no longer possible.
In a true "free market", the full cost of sending the junk mail - including returns - would be charged up front. After all that's how everyone else is done, e.g., "30-day return policy" which is really "return to vendor" - with usually some shared financial risk between both the maker and the seller - an incentive to produce good stuff people want.
Posted on January 1, 2009 4:59 AM
As long as stupid people exist, others will come up with schemes to exploit them.
Gotta go now, just got an email from a widow in Nigeria who is going to give me 2 million to transfer her husband's 10 million into my bank account :)
Posted on January 1, 2009 9:02 AM