Too good to be true...?

Posted by: Tom F on 10 May 2004

This may be old news etc. but...

Got home the other day to find I had a message on the answerphone regarding a competition i had entered last year (couldn't think of one but, still).

Message was from a Nicky Fisher from Jackpot Promotions telling me that I was the proud winner of either a 42" plasma TV, £2.5k PC, £6k cash or a Carribean cruise. She managed to leave her work extension number (but not the rest of the number) as a means of ontact or I could call the atuomated claims number (09... premium rate etc).

Before phoning today, I decided to do a quick google this morning and came up with this URL=http://blog.beebware.co.uk/archives/000547.html]blog of similar experiences.[/URL] It seems the whole thing is a bit of a scam and seems, apparently, to be resitant to TPS (which I will sign up for anyway).

Just thought I'd let you all know.

Tom

Posted on: 10 May 2004 by rodwsmith

Hi Tom

I have had this too, and my exploration (I haven't read everything in your link) led me to find out that some of these are "legal" scams (apart from the TPS part). They function by ensuring one of the prizes - the one you will actually get - is in fact near-worthless or expensive to take up. In your case it is probably that the "2.5k PC" is a "reconditioned" museum piece from yesteryear that cost £2.5k new but would only make a good ashtray these days. Sometimes it is flight-free holiday accommodation, or travel that necessitates the purchase of outrageously expensive insurance.

This is legal, although to comply fully with the law, they do need to give away at least one each of the other prizes, but at £10 per phone call, they can afford to.

Of course it could be a totally illegal scam with no prizes at all from a company that then disappears into the ether. This is perhaps likely given the TPS contravention.

If something's seems too good to be true, then it almost certainly is...

Rod