I received a letter with a guarantee that I had won one of four prizes (a car, a gift certificate for Circuit City, free air fare, and the last one escapes me at the moment).
I called up the number to claim the prize. After a conversation with a sales representative and asking how I claim the prize without buying anything, I sent the company a self addressed envelope to them so they could notify me of which prize I won.
I received a form on or around Sept 11th stating that I had 30 days to return a second form to release two round trip airline tickets. The caviat of this deal is that for a certain location (say San Diego, CA) I need to stay at a particular hotel for a determined number of days.
1) Is it legal to offer a guaranteed prize based on the condition that you spend money.
2) I'm wondering if anyone has ever "won" anything other than the two round trip airline tickets.
This company has had class actions filed against them before for using similiar methods.
Please be aware: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO GIVE THESE PEOPLE ANY MONEY TO CLAIM A PRIZE. Just insist that you want your prize per their letter, and that you will not be paying them a dime (though my sales person did hang up on me prior to giving me the full instructions and implied that a purchase was necessary to receive the gift at all.)
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