Recently I received a call from a lady saying that I won some departmental store lucky draw which I did not even remember entering. She said I won a free cruise to wherever I like and some shopping vouchers. She asked me to go down to their office and pick up the gifts, but I have to stay for an hour to listen to a presentation.
This sounds so familiar! I have been cheated a few times on this, so now I tend to be more wary when things like this happen. The first time I was with my second ex, we were approached by some young kids in the middle of Orchard Road to do a survey. Then apparently I won the first prize, which was supposedly a holiday destination to any of the seven countries listed.
At first we could not believe our luck, then when we were brought to their workplace, we had to sit and listen to some guy promoting their holiday services. The kid promised us only forty-five minutes of our time, but in the end we wasted about four hours! And it was no use telling the guy we needed to go as he kept asking us to stay and wait for the manager to talk to us. In the end, we got so irritated that we asked to just take the gift and we would like to go. But they told us that since we did not purchase any of the services, we were not entitled to the gift.
Can you believe this?! This was an absolute misrepresentation! My second ex was so angry that he said that he was a lawyer and could sue them for fraud! In the end, they quickly gave us the gift and ushered us out. It was not the issue over the gift, but if they said to collect the gift after a forty-five minute presentation, then please make sure they stuck to their word and make it just an hour at the most. If it was to be so long, the least they could do was to let us know and then we could decide whether we wanted to go ahead. It was more an issue of principle.
The second time was with my third ex. We did another different survey but the structure was about the same. When he won the top prize, and we were asked to go to another place to collect his prize, I already voiced out my suspicions. But the kid who surveyed us assured us that it was a different thing, and we would just need to go and collect the prize, no obligations. So I reluctantly followed my ex and true enough, it was the same thing.
This time round, I refused to sit there and listened to the staff, so I told my ex to just ask them if they were going to give out the prize and we would go after that. But we were told we needed to sit in for at least an hour before we were entitled to the prize. So we said it did not matter since we were on our way to a movie, and we just left empty-handed.
The third time I received a letter stating that I won a consolation prize in a departmental store lucky draw, and the prize was a free three-day trip to Bangkok. I thought that was genuine as I did submit some lucky draw coupons a few months before that while out shoppping.
That was a year where I seemed to have a winning streak. I won a pair of Oakley sunglasses by submitting purchase receipts from LEA (which I gave to my second ex just before he dumped me), S$500 cash consolation prize by charging my Mastercard to Comfort cab rides, S$50 cash consolation prize by submitting a story to True Singapore Ghost Stories Book 12, a Motorola E360 phone by winning the SMS "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" game, a Motorola T720 phone by winning the SMS "Weakest Link" game, and another Motorola T720 phone from the Motorola Warranty card draw, ending with a pair of genuine Tag Heuer watches (which I gave the male version to my third ex), the second prize from more Mastercard charges to Comfort cab rides.
Somehow I never seemed to win anything after that. My ex used to joke that I should have started buying 4D or Toto (both which I have never bought and will never buy) that year, then perhaps I could have won as well. So when I received the letter stating I won a consolation prize from the departmental store lucky draw, I thought that was really true.
But when I went down to the place stated, my gut feeling told me that it was probably another of those holiday scam thing. And when I was told to meet with this guy who would share some of their services, I said that I only wanted to collect the prize as indicated in the letter. The receptionist said that I had to sit in for an hour to hear them out before I could get the gift. So I said I did not have the time, please either give me what was promised as stated in black and white, otherwise I would just leave. But the receptionist kept insisting I must stay for an hour before I could get the gift. So in the end I just left without collecting anything.
Perhaps all these scams or MLMs exist because of human's greedy nature. I find it so prevalent especially here that people turn really ugly when there is something free to be snatched. It does not matter even if it is something useless or something they do not want, as long as it is free. Plus the fact that people like to go travelling and stay in first-class luxury hotels at a minimal price.
But one thing most people forget is that there is no such thing as a free lunch. That is why now I get very wary whenever I receive calls like this saying that I have won this or that in draws I did not even remember taking part in, especially from companies I have never heard of. They will say the attractive part, ie the various free or discounted benefits you are entitled to, but will totally or conveniently neglect to mention the other part, ie how much you have to pay for certain things before you can actually get all the free stuff.
This sounds so familiar! I have been cheated a few times on this, so now I tend to be more wary when things like this happen. The first time I was with my second ex, we were approached by some young kids in the middle of Orchard Road to do a survey. Then apparently I won the first prize, which was supposedly a holiday destination to any of the seven countries listed.
At first we could not believe our luck, then when we were brought to their workplace, we had to sit and listen to some guy promoting their holiday services. The kid promised us only forty-five minutes of our time, but in the end we wasted about four hours! And it was no use telling the guy we needed to go as he kept asking us to stay and wait for the manager to talk to us. In the end, we got so irritated that we asked to just take the gift and we would like to go. But they told us that since we did not purchase any of the services, we were not entitled to the gift.
Can you believe this?! This was an absolute misrepresentation! My second ex was so angry that he said that he was a lawyer and could sue them for fraud! In the end, they quickly gave us the gift and ushered us out. It was not the issue over the gift, but if they said to collect the gift after a forty-five minute presentation, then please make sure they stuck to their word and make it just an hour at the most. If it was to be so long, the least they could do was to let us know and then we could decide whether we wanted to go ahead. It was more an issue of principle.
The second time was with my third ex. We did another different survey but the structure was about the same. When he won the top prize, and we were asked to go to another place to collect his prize, I already voiced out my suspicions. But the kid who surveyed us assured us that it was a different thing, and we would just need to go and collect the prize, no obligations. So I reluctantly followed my ex and true enough, it was the same thing.
This time round, I refused to sit there and listened to the staff, so I told my ex to just ask them if they were going to give out the prize and we would go after that. But we were told we needed to sit in for at least an hour before we were entitled to the prize. So we said it did not matter since we were on our way to a movie, and we just left empty-handed.
The third time I received a letter stating that I won a consolation prize in a departmental store lucky draw, and the prize was a free three-day trip to Bangkok. I thought that was genuine as I did submit some lucky draw coupons a few months before that while out shoppping.
That was a year where I seemed to have a winning streak. I won a pair of Oakley sunglasses by submitting purchase receipts from LEA (which I gave to my second ex just before he dumped me), S$500 cash consolation prize by charging my Mastercard to Comfort cab rides, S$50 cash consolation prize by submitting a story to True Singapore Ghost Stories Book 12, a Motorola E360 phone by winning the SMS "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" game, a Motorola T720 phone by winning the SMS "Weakest Link" game, and another Motorola T720 phone from the Motorola Warranty card draw, ending with a pair of genuine Tag Heuer watches (which I gave the male version to my third ex), the second prize from more Mastercard charges to Comfort cab rides.
Somehow I never seemed to win anything after that. My ex used to joke that I should have started buying 4D or Toto (both which I have never bought and will never buy) that year, then perhaps I could have won as well. So when I received the letter stating I won a consolation prize from the departmental store lucky draw, I thought that was really true.
But when I went down to the place stated, my gut feeling told me that it was probably another of those holiday scam thing. And when I was told to meet with this guy who would share some of their services, I said that I only wanted to collect the prize as indicated in the letter. The receptionist said that I had to sit in for an hour to hear them out before I could get the gift. So I said I did not have the time, please either give me what was promised as stated in black and white, otherwise I would just leave. But the receptionist kept insisting I must stay for an hour before I could get the gift. So in the end I just left without collecting anything.
Perhaps all these scams or MLMs exist because of human's greedy nature. I find it so prevalent especially here that people turn really ugly when there is something free to be snatched. It does not matter even if it is something useless or something they do not want, as long as it is free. Plus the fact that people like to go travelling and stay in first-class luxury hotels at a minimal price.
But one thing most people forget is that there is no such thing as a free lunch. That is why now I get very wary whenever I receive calls like this saying that I have won this or that in draws I did not even remember taking part in, especially from companies I have never heard of. They will say the attractive part, ie the various free or discounted benefits you are entitled to, but will totally or conveniently neglect to mention the other part, ie how much you have to pay for certain things before you can actually get all the free stuff.
6 comments:
funny how my colleagues are just discussing this lucky draw scams... and yes you are right. It is because human's greed nature that the scam can still take place. You would be surprised how many people do 'buy' their services to get the so-called 'prizes' or 'gift'...
In the end, we can just ask in the phone, if we have to sit down for presentation, forget it... At the end of the day, no such things as free lunch. Even Readers Digest now use a 'Lucky Draw' scam to get a new subscription
Ack, I'm so sorry; I used to work for that company. I believe it's called O*riental T*ravel. I was one of those teenagers getting people to go up. In my defence, we honestly didn't know what was happening upstairs in office, we were just told to get people to go up; plus we are paid commission ONLY so we had to get people up or not get paid for a full day of work.
Also when one of the people I unwittingly scammed came back to tell me what was going on upstairs, I promptly quit, ON THE SPOT.
So I hope I've vindicated myself :)
Sen : Really? I never have to enter any lucky draw thing to subscribe to Readers Digest.
Jadeite : Hi, Sonic's "little niece"! Thanks for dropping by, what an honour!
It's ok, I never blamed those survey kids for what happened. What I was angry about was that the company should just tell everything straight out on what was going on, instead of promising fine things and in the end it was all a fraud.
If there was nothing to hide, the company should explain to the employees everything, then the "customers" can then choose whether to take part or not. That would be more fair and less deceitful.
funny my friend and i were talking about it the other day..and he told me that his gf used to work for one of the companies..the prizes are fixed in such a way that you will win the top prize in one of your two picks..so that you have to go and attend the talk..i've attended the talks twice..once i got this travel voucher with no travel company's contacts or address anywhere to be seen..and the second time i got a "branded watch" which was supposedly worth $150 but i sold off at cash convertors for 150 cents! in addition, sometimes midway through the presentation, someone will ring a bell to declare that there was a new customer signing up for the travel packages..heard that that was fixed as well..guess that the competitive nature of the tourism industry has forced certain companies to such "cheap tricks" which is both time wasting and pretty annoying!
Yes, I got into the exact same situation as you. I won the travel voucher and the watch too, which incidentally had never worked since the day it was handed over to me.
And the time my ex and I went for the presentation, the bell actually rang twice, declaring who signed up for which package.
I stil prefer to book tours through a trusted, reputable agency!
I always tell them to keep the prizes for themselves, once I find out that it's one of these ruses.
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