Just about every product we put in our shopping trolley these days seems to come attached to some sort of competition that offers a lucrative prize. That prize can range from an incredible amount of cash to items such as jet skis, automobiles or lesser electrical goods such as plasma tv'S, mobile phones or DVD players.
The one thing they seem to have in common is a requirement that you - the customer - spend additional money to become part of that competition.
That can take several forms. You may be required to post the coupon attached to the product back to the company for registration - which involves a fifty cent stamp - or you may be obliged to make a phone call to a number where your details will be entered into the competition.
Every such competition comes with small print which details the rules that will apply to the competition - and by law in some states - a date when the competition will be drawn - and the winner advertised in a certain daily newspaper.
Few people who enter these competitions expect to win - and even fewer take the trouble to buy the nominated newspaper to check on the results.
Even those few who do would be little the wiser if the winner was a common name supposed to be a resident of a crowded suburb of a major city. Who is going to take the trouble to see if this is correct - and check that the competition is legitimate ?
Competitions are a popular form of advertising and they certainly sell products. These competitions require authority from a state government department, but it would be unusual if that department had a compliance division that tracked all and every authorised competition to see that it was legitimate, produced a verifiable winner - and that person actually received the prise. With the thousands of such promotions under way at any given period of time it would be unusual if a few shonky traders were not running scams to improve their bottom line !
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