Dear Everybody:
I recently visited a REPO CAR LOT after I'd gotten one of those junk mail advertising flyers sporting a "scratch off" silver box which indicated I'd won one of about five different valuable prizes — one possibility of which was $5,000 in CASH. WOW!!!
When I got to the car lot, I scratched off the box with a copper penny in front of the salesman, as required, and the box said I'd won "the" cash prize. However, instead of receiving the displayed $5,000, the car salesman instructed me to reach inside a drawing box and pull out a piece of paper, so I reached in and pulled out a WOA Certificate which said "The bearer of this Certificate is entitled to $1,000 worth of merchandise and services from the WOA (World of America) Internet Gift Catalog without any product charges".
Hmmmm... Always the skeptic, for one brief insane moment I actually got excited, as all I'd ever won in my whole entire life was the "Ugliest Halloween Face Contest" (made with my own face, incidentally) for three years in a row at my hometown VFW Halloween Party in the 60's.
Anyway, when I entered the Internet site and actually viewed the shopping spree merchandise... UGH!!! Gag-o-rama and boo hoo hoo!!! To my complete dismay I realized that WOA (World of America) Gift Certificates themselves are nothing more than the SECOND MARKEING SCAM to get consumers to pay retail prices for cheap, junky, useless merchandise. I perused every single category, and all I saw was JUNK, JUNK and MORE JUNK. I mean, the kind of stuff you wouldn't have or wouldn't need even if it was lying along the side of the road. The men might get orgasmic over the cheap kitchen or pocket knives (they always do), but to us women the stuff on this site is third rate, cheaply constructed, and worse - most of it is useless. It definitely fits into the category of "Junk I wouldn't Have Even If Someone Gave It To Me". WOA doubles, or even triples, their version of the retail price of the item, while indicating that the only thing the customer has to pay is the S/H (Shipping & Handling) price which, folks, happens to be the actual retail price of the item, or the price a customer would pay in a retail store.
So everybody - POOIE! Pooie! Pooie! This is a SCAM on two levels, the first level being those junk mail flyers randomly sent to various residential addresses by local businesses in order to lure prospective customers into their store or site so they can attempt to sell them some overpriced something or other - and, the second level is the customers (who don't get out much) are enticed to pay retail prices (which WOA calls "S/H") for junky, third-rate, relatively useless merchandise. I often wonder - had I pulled out a certificate saying I'd won a TV - I'm sure I'd get to enter some site and have the privilege of paying retail for it as well.
Welcome to America! The Land of the Free-Wheeling, Non-Punishable SCAMS.
We all need to listen to Judge Judy: "If it doesn't make sense, it's probably not true. And if it SEEMS too good to be true, it usually is."
Amen.
Gillyanne
Vero Beach, Florida
U.S.A.
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