Sweepstakes Home
Sweepstakes can be fun - but shouldn't
cost you money
Sweepstakes offers sweep savings
out the door
Sweepstakes 'scams' unveiled through
series
Daughters vent their frustrations
at sweepstakes
Another area person also believed
he was a winner
USPE responds to local customers'
complaints
Attorney General wants to better
the odds in sweepstakes
Sweepstakes victim goes public
Sweepstakes industry hits unlucky
streak
Psychology lures people into buying
Sweepstakes victim getting her
money back
Sweepstakes legislation may carry
local victim's name
Buying club complaints piling up
Here's the key: Think, call BBB
before you sign
NEWS-SUN, EVENING STAR
& HERALD-
REPUBLICAN
|
Sweepstakes offers
sweep savings out the door
Originally printed in The Evening
Star 1/2/99
By CINDY BEVINGTON
The name in this story has been changed to protect the
identities of the victim and her family members, who live in
northeast Indiana.
ANYTOWN, USA - Her dreams are stacked in her garage in boxes:
wall to wall, ceiling to floor, the merchandise Suzy* has ordered
from United States Purchasing Exchange in hopes of winning cars,
appliances and millions of dollars is all she has left of her
savings, her checking account, her IRA accounts.
The products and magazines she's ordered over seven years
of believing she actually might win one of USPE's - or other
sweepstakes companies', such as Publisher's Clearing House -
"big" prizes also fill her bedrooms, utility room and
attic.
She didn't set out to order so much stuff. It was just the
idea of a dream coming true: the mailings, complete with her
name in boldface, "promised" her she was a winner of
millions of dollars, a return that would make every cent she'd
spent well worth it.
With promises in hand that read "You are the GUARANTEED
winner," she ordered the merchandise a little at a time.
She didn't bother to compute what it was costing her until it
was too late. Then, when she did realize what she'd spent, the
ordering became an obligation, a frenzied mission she had to
complete just so she could get her money back through the promised
prize.
Now, seven years later, the promised rewards of becoming a
millionaire are still just dreams.
And Suzy, who once had enough money to buy her home in cash
and to travel with friends to Las Vegas and other tourist spots,
is now broke.
She has nothing left, except her home and monthly pension.
No savings. No IRAs. No money for trips. She doesn't even have
a car.
What she does have - thousands of items bought from USPE over
the years at the average rate of $25 an order - is an almost
grotesque reflection of the "promises" Suzy believed
- and still believes - through the company's mailings.
"I've probably spent the most money of anybody in all
of USPE's customers," Suzy admits. "My daughter says
it's over $50,000 to them alone. But they told me I'm a winner
this time. Please, I know you think I'm nuts. But they promised
I'm winning $3 million. They said it was me. It has to be me.
They even had me sign a $3 million check and mail it back to
them, probably 15, 16, 17 or 20 times.
"Today is New Year's Eve, so they're probably not going
to award anything today, or tomorrow because Publisher's Clearing
House is doing theirs tomorrow, and I don't think USPE would
give my prize on the same day. But, I think it definitely will
be Monday or at least in a few days."
Suzy wrings her hands as she says this, obviously nervous,
admittedly scared, terrified, actually: "I really don't
think I should be doing this," she says, almost backing
out of the interview. "If they find out, if USPE knew I'm
the one talking to you - and they will figure it out because
they said in their letter I'm their best customer - then they
might get mad and give the money to somebody else.
"And then what will I do? It's all I have. I'd rather
lose the $50,000 to gain the $3 million. But if I lose the $3
million they promised me, I have nothing. Nothing."
Suzy rambles on, admitting she is scared to death, scared
of not winning, scared of admitting she's lost everything on
a dream and a promise - a promise that she is too scared to admit
is the same promise thousands of other people, many of them senior
citizens, are counting on, as well.
"They send you the documents," she explains, trying
to show why she believes it is she, not the others, who is the
winner. "How often? All the time. I've gotten three a week
from USPE. And, yes, I buy something every time. They say you
can't win unless you buy something.
"I'm in so far now I can't stop. When it does stop, though,
as soon as I get the $3 million, I'm going to stop. I'll have
my time back then - sometimes it takes as much as three hours
to fill out all the documents and do all the signing - and, I'll
have my $50,000 back too."
Yes, she says reluctantly, maybe "everybody" gets
the same mailing. But, she adds, she believes she "definitely"
is the winner because "I'm the oldest (in age) customer
they have."
Suzy, 75, talks of an older customer who gave up ordering
from USPE, who had huge garage sales afterwards, selling at a
big discount the merchandise she'd ordered without winning. "But,"
Suzy adds, "she wasn't with them as long I have been, only
a few years. That's probably why she didn't win, although she
ordered more stuff, $100 and more at a time.
"I admit (USPE) tells a few lies here and there, but
they do give the money away, I know. They show you pictures and
names of the winners. A senior citizen won the $3 million just
last year.
"They told me I would be their sixth multi-millionaire.
You know, they can't come right out and tell me I am the
winner, but they hint. 'We've got your plaques ordered,' they
said, in the last letter, ready to put my name on them. That's
how I know it's me."
The company even had her send in a list of "invited guests"
who would be attending the awards ceremonies with her in New
York City, Suzy goes on. Without hesitation, she sent the company
her daughters' names - and now she receives mail personalized
for her with her daughters' names on it, as well, she says.
Besides the $3 million and a Cadillac that is yet to be delivered,
Suzy is waiting on another car, a Ford Explorer the company said
"just last week" she "definitely was guaranteed
to win." She also is still waiting on a refrigerator she
won. And a kitchen range. And $4,000 she elected to accept in
place of the Lincoln Continental she also "won."
Despite the length of time since she was informed she was
a "guaranteed winner" of all these things, she still
believes the prizes are coming. "Oh, yes! I believe! I want
to believe!" she says, emphatically.
"I mean, seven years down the drain is what it would
be if they lied to me. All the time, they've been writing me
real nice letters.
"It was just last year that I went broke. All my savings
are gone. My kids help me now. They want me to stop this. My
one daughter says the company likes me because of the money I
spend and that I'll never win anything because they know I'll
quit buying from them after I win.
"But I've made up my mind I'm going to stay with USPE
until the bitter end, until I get the money. I'm giving them
the benefit of the doubt because I've got so much in it.
"They say you don't have to buy anything, but then they
do say in no uncertain terms that 'we prefer to reward people
who do buy.' I've got boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff I've
bought. I do use some of it for Christmas gifts, things like
that.
"And now that I don't have a car, it's kind of nice,
really, to have a catalog to buy things from, since I can't get
out."
Her car broke down over three years ago. She refused to have
it fixed because she was waiting on the Cadillac she'd won to
arrive. Finally, a few months ago, she sold it to a relative
after the tires literally rotted underneath it.
Suzy is quick to point out that one reason she believes the
company truly gives out prizes is because she did receive a camcorder
and big-screen TV last year. The TV doesn't work anymore. She's
never tried the camcorder.
Yes, she knows she could have bought several TVs and camcorders
with the $50,000 she's given USPE in seven years. But the two
prizes are tokens of what is yet to come, she insists.
Suzy also admits to spending money on Publisher's Clearing
House until "I got mad and ended it." She gets so many
magazines in the mail now that she honestly doesn't know how
many, she says. "I don't buy them anymore, anyway,"
she says, "because I think I subscribe to about all of them."
She doesn't have time to read them all, although she does
"enjoy some of them." She has no idea how much money
she's spent in magazine subscriptions.
"I'm in with Dick Clark now (American Family Publishers),
though," she says. "But they don't bother me like USPE.
They don't hound me. I only hear from them every six weeks or
so."
Monday: Suzy's daughters vent their frustration and Suzy
comes up with a surprise for USPE.
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STAR REPORTER'S
SWEEPSTAKES SERIES WINS NATIONAL AWARD
EXCLUSIVE TO THIS WEB SITE:
A letter to The Evening Star editor
from Indiana's Attorney General
Want to read another paper's stories
about sweepstake scams?
Why do the elderly seem more susceptible
to believing sweepstakes promises? Two experts give their opinions
Why do the elderly seem more susceptible
to believing sweepstakes promises? A gerontologist shares his
studies.
Iowa has seen it before
National issue, local example,
big news
Persons to contact if you believe you may be the victim
of a sweepstakes scam:
National Association of Attorneys
General
750 First Street, NE, Suite 1100
Washington, DC 20002
PH: (202) 326-6000
FAX: (202) 408-7014
Office of Attorney
General
Steve Carter
402 W. Washington St.
Fifth Floor
Indianapolis, IN 46204
PH: (317) 232-6201
FAX: (317) 232-7979
National Fraud Information Center 1-800-876-7060
National
Consumer's League
1-202-835-3323
Federal Trade Commission 1-877-382-4357
(toll free)
E-mail
Cindy Bevington
or Evening Star
editor Dave Kurtz.
WATCH FOR ADDITIONAL STORIES EXCLUSIVE TO THIS WEB SITE!
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