Two weeks ago, the phone call came into the house from a person who said they were from the Awards Claim Center in Edgecomb.
“I am calling in regards to the Cool Car Cash Give-away contest you entered last year. Please call Tanya B. by 9 p.m.
“Again, if this is the right party, congratulations, and have a good day.”
A call to “Tanya” produced a return call. She said I had won the contest.
“You have won one of 4 prizes. A 2009 Lincoln Navigator (or $45,000) $2,500 in cash, a luxury eight day vacation, or a 37 inch flat screen TV set.”
All I had to do to claim my prize was drive to the Sheepscot Harbor Village Resort on Davis Island. Her other directions were unclear, but she said it was not far from “West Casket.”
She said I would be given a scratch-off ticket containing one of the four prizes. Scratch it off and it will tell you your prize.
No, she promised, it was not a sales pitch for vacations.
“I wouldn’t do that to you,” she promised, saying she would give me a $100 gas credit card to show her good faith. She also reminded me to bring my wife, identification, credit cards or a checkbook.
“You do earn over $40,000 a year?” she said.
Her phone pitch was the opening act in a mini drama that has been repeated over and over all across the country, according to federal and state regulators.
The Internet is peppered with reports of this Navigator contest pitch. It is a vacation time-share (vacation) pitch. The Better Business Bureau, state and federal state regulators warn of it.
Roger Bintliff, the owner of Sheepscot Harbor said the time-share sales operation is separate from his resort. He said they purchased two of his units.
“He (Leon) has been at it for years and has been pretty successful,” said Bintliff. “I hope he is legit.”
“You have already won a grand prize,” says an FTC ad in the Yellow Pages. Then it warns that misleading sweepstakes cost consumers millions of dollars each year.
“Offering prizes so someone will listen to a time share sales pitch has been going on for many, many years,” said Kate Simmons, a spokeswoman for the Maine Attorney General. It is legal she said.
Sitting outside Bintliff’s Sheepscot Harbor resort on Davis Island, across the river from Wiscasset, not West Casket, was a nice blond woman who checked my name and told me to fill out a form seeking a lot of personal information. The form told me they would ask for a photo ID and a checkbook and or a credit card before attending a presentation for a special offer from the Northeast Vacation Club.
But the lady “Tanya” said it was not a vacation pitch, I said. Was that a scam, a come on?
“Get out of here,” she said.
When I asked to talk to her supervisor, an overweight man wearing a hula shirt with slicked back hair came over. He said his name was “John Smith.”
He said he would get the boss.
The boss said his name was Leon Wiseman, and went into a long pitch about what a good deal this was for people. When I interrupted him to ask where he was from, he accused me of trying to bully him.
The overweight guy tried to interrupt his boss, but Wiseman told “John Smith” to shut up. Wiseman called the heavy man “Mikey.”
When I asked him if the “you have won a Navigator” was his sales pitch, he said a marketing company did the calling.
Did anyone win a Navigator? “I think they gave one away in Vermont a couple of years ago,” he answered.
He noted the pitch was entirely voluntary and no one has to buy or spend a dime to win.
Then the woman came up and handed me a scratch off ticket.
“This is what we promised you,” she said suggesting it was time for me to leave.
The ticket shows the odds of winning a Navigator are 1 in 50,000, the chance to win $2500 in cash is 7 in 50,000 and the chance of winning a flat screen TV set is 50 in 50,000.
The chance of winning a vacation is 49,942 out of 50,000, it said.
The scratch off ticket and the list of vacations bear the name “ITC Gift Department.” The scratch off ticket said it is sponsored by ITC Inc. from Orange City, Fla.
Florida has no listing for either company, according to Liz Compton, the public information director for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs.
“People need to check these things out,” she said.
“You don’t win contest you didn’t enter. It’s laughable, but you don’t know how many people fall for these schemes,” she said. “I got one (a call) from the Spanish Lottery last week. People just want something for free and shut off their common sense.”
