Monday, November 22, 2010

Anyone else get this Louisville scam?

This is totally our own fault, but this weekend Brandon and I got a phone call about a "free vacation grand prize give-away" scam from something we picked up at Louisville. Wondering if anyone else had this?

When we were walking through the trade show, Brandon dropped a business card at one of the trade show vendors booths that was giving away a free drawing. We didn't think much of it, lots of booths have those drawings.

Then Friday, he got a phone call saying he WON the prize from the drawing at Louisville. The person calling said that his card was drawn at Louisville stock show and he had won a free trip to Disneyland, Daytona Beach, and a Nascar event for ourselves and another couple. The caller asked if his spouse was around to confirm the trip. Since I was at work, the caller said they would call back on Saturday at 9:00 a.m. with our official information about the prize.

Of course, we're both thinking this is too good to be true, but whatever, we'll see what they have to say when they call. Well on Saturday morning, me and Brandon were hanging out at the showbarn and the lady called back again, at 9:00 a.m. on the dot. Brandon was on the other side of the barn from me, and the lady insisted we both be there for the "official prize call" so she said she would call back at noon.

Well as noon rolled around, we had just finished working some bulls when Brandon's phone rang. Caller ID unavailable. We remembered it was our prize. So Brandon puts her on speaker phone and she starts telling us about how we won from the drawing at the Louisville stock show. She's like all super nice and saying how we are ranchers, we probably would love a vacation, they love it when people from the Louisville show win, bla bla bla. She starts off by telling us we won a 3-part vacation for us and another couple. The first segment is 5 days 4 nights at the Ramada Inn MainGate Orlando Florida plus 2 free tickets to Disneyland, and free shuttle service and meal money. From there, we go to Daytona Beach for a few days. Then from there, we can choose a "bonus trip" ranging from a Nascar event to Vegas. So she says we don't have to say the dates or the name of the other couple, just whether we want the trip or not. She says it has to be used sometime within the next 18 months. Then she starts pressing us do we want the trip or not.

I asked, how much does it cost us? Then she said that it's totally FREE, except we have to pay a $400 "promotional fee" plus any hotel taxes, which are usually $10 a night she tells us. Plus we also have to pay for our own travel to get there. Starting to sound weird.

Then I asked her, when do we have to pay? Then she says RIGHT NOW, with your CREDiT CARD, then you just call us whenever you're ready to take the trip.

Brandon says he doesn't think we can agree to that at this moment, and then suddenly her tone totally changes. She snaps at him something like "Well fine then, take care" and hangs up.

Just for fun, we looked up the Ramada Inn Main Gate hotel she told us was the five star hotel that we had won these luxurious accommodations for.....the nightly rate was $45/night.

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