You may have already won...

[rivka]

When we were at the zoo on Saturday, I filled out a sweepstakes entry for a free trip. I figured that it was probably a timeshare pitch, but what the hell.

Tonight, the phone rang.

"Rebecca?" said a voice that was breathless with excitement. "You went to the zoo on Saturday?" Yes, I said. "With your husband Michael?" Yes, I said again. "And you filled out a drawing for a free Florida vacation?" Yes, I said.

"Well, Rebecca, maybe you want to sit down... because you! Are going! To Florida!"

"Okay," I said calmly. "Why don't you give me a few more details?"

He dropped the hugely excited voice, and his tone became kindly, confidential. "Well, as you know, any time you win something big - like if you win a car in the lottery, or something - any time you win something worth a few thousand dollars, there's a gift tax to pay. And-"

"Huh, this is funny," I said. "So you're going to want me to send you some money so I can get my free vacation."

"Well, there is a special fee that we can pay to get around it but you know what let's just give this a pass," he said rapidly. And hung up.

I am amused at how much he didn't even try, once it became clear that I wasn't going to be an easy mark. He didn't even wait for me to say no, I didn't intend to pay a fee for something ostensibly free. He didn't try to argue with me. One hint of skepticism, and he was ready to move on to someone who would shout "OMG, me?! But I never win anything! Florida!!! Wow!!!" I'm sure they make a lot more money that way.

Comments

[duane-kc.livejournal.com]

Congrats on not being taken by these slimeballs. My Dad got caught by one of them when I was about ten; luckily he had no intention of buying a condo in Arkansas or it'd have cost him a *lot* more than it did. [grin]

[naomikritzer]

I had a coworker back in the mid-1990s who got a pitch like that; in her case, she'd filled out the form at the state fair. It started in almost the exact same way -- "You are going to Jamaica!" -- except the con man didn't drop the pitch even after she was clearly skeptical. He also tried to talk M. into getting more excited, and at the point that M. was clearly on to him, he demanded to speak to her husband, with the implication being, "you, the little woman, have no right to blow me off; I am going to speak to the Man of the House."

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

Did you let zoo management know they had a scammer setting up shop there?

[lyrical1.livejournal.com]

Yeah. That was my first thought...

[eeyorerin]

It's the very naughty horse!

[madrobin.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing this. I wonder how he would have responded if you had said "oh, that's fine, I'm not worried about the taxes, I have enough capital losses this year to offset the whole thing". Or perhaps "I've been unemployed this year, so this will still fit within my personal exemption -- no worries about taxes".

A few weeks ago, I ran into my first obvious scam on Craigslist. Maybe it's time to break my LJ silence and write about it...

[larcb.livejournal.com]

This happened to me years ago, the guy could not figure out why I wasn't jumping up and down. When he asked for my credit card number, I declined, and he got PISSED and hung up. Can't believe they're still doing this over 10 years later!

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Probably 25-30 years ago, I had a friend who had been offered a vacation at one of the ski resorts in the Appalachians if she just listened to a timeshare pitch. And if you listened to the pitch and didn't buy a timeshare, you got one of three prizes. She wanted to go, and since it was a two-person vacation, she invited me. I told her that the pitch would probably take most of the day and she said that was all right because we'd have the vacation and she'd get a prize. I looked carefully at the descriptions of the prizes and pointed out that they could be either wonderful or trash. She was sure they were wonderful.

I agreed to go with her and indeed, the pitch was five hours (although it did include some forest-seeing and apartment-seeing) and her prize was trash. Then we saw the place they wanted us to stay and we came home. She was still pretty gullible after that, though.