Lately the bottom feeders have turned back to their good old ways and are again using our land lines to scam us. I have received several phone calls congratulating me for having been chosen as the lucky winner of a “free” vacation. Funny thing though, I don’t recall having entered any draw or lotto offering a free vacation?
Poor Nicole fell for this scam, read her story here. This is a very slimmy type of scam and unfortunately it is quite effective at sucking the unsuspected into their devious web. If they manage to get your credit card number, your identity is now at risk. refuse the vacation; doesn’t matter, as they say they got your number.
Do yourself a favour and slam that receiver down the minute the word “free” is spoken.
UPDATE …OCT. 10, 2008
It seems that a number of readers are associating this post with a similar type of “fuzzy” advertisement masking as a “free” vacation to Las Vegas. The one in question is actually a way of selling timeshares. They will give you those free stays, but there is a catch! You put down a deposit which will be refunded if you agree to attend a presentation. In other words once you go for your “free” vacation you will be hounded into buying a timeshare and these presentations could take up most of your “vacation” time. If you do not attend, you may very well lose your deposit.
This is not an uncommon practise in the timeshare business. What makes this one particularly annoying and rather “unethical” is the fact they are passing it off as a contest when in fact anyone who bothers to call will get the same offer.
As far as we know this is not illegal, but let’s just say rather “scammy”. Remember as they say “Free is Free But..”
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