Worthless Prizes

With four drivers in my house I often find interesting things in my car. Recently, I found a Swiss Chalet "Dip'n Win" prize strip. At first I assumed that it was abandoned because it was a loser. But that wasn't the reason.

I was actually holding a winner of sorts: a "$50 THE SOURCE GIFT CARD*". Sounds great so far. However, the next line reads "with a new 3-year phone activation." I didn't even bother trying to read the remaining 7 lines of barely-legible fine print.

This kind of worthless prize just makes me think less of Swiss Chalet. I'd think less of cell phone contracts as well if that were possible. What happened to the days when you would win a small order of fries?

Comments

  1. PotatoJuly 13, 2011 at 1:34 AM

    To be fair to Swiss Chalet, that was a loser. They put Source coupons on the losers (I can't remember the exact wording on mine, but it was something like "you're not a winner this time, but here's a bonus offer of blah-blah-blah for the Source. Fine print fine print fine print." All of the Source coupons are exchangeable for what looks like the only useful offer: 50% off batteries. http://www.thesource.ca/Sitelets/dipnwin/default.asp

    Though the coupons were nearly worthless and unrelated (I'd have preferred even 5% off at Swiss Chalet rather than some random deal to a completely different store, or a small fries or whatever as you suggest), I thought it was better than the usual "please play again" losing message (one I saw 100% of the time in Rrrrroll up the rim this year).

    The winners actually did get free stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Michael JamesJuly 13, 2011 at 10:44 AM

    @Potato: Now that you told me what it says I managed to make out the first line of the fine print. In a sense this is worse than a loser message if it causes some people to enter into a 3-year cell phone contract.

    ReplyDelete
  3. geneJuly 13, 2011 at 10:02 PM

    Ha! "Hey, you're a loser anyway, why not lock yourself into a three-year cell contract!"

    ReplyDelete
  4. Michael JamesJuly 14, 2011 at 12:02 AM

    @Gene: Well done. You managed to capture my feelings about this much better than I did!

    ReplyDelete
  5. The Dividend NinjaJuly 14, 2011 at 6:57 PM

    Yup, nothing like a worthless company handing out worthless prizes :) I can't even believe The Source is still in business. Does anyone actually buy anything there ?

    ReplyDelete

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