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Tuesday, March 29, 2022

Do You Recognize This Scam?

This card arrived in the mail.
At first I thought this was some sort of promotion gimmick by Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, on which we have traveled in the past, but nothing identifies the sender.

Long, long ago, time share condominium companies would have these sort of "come on down, you have won one of these fabulous gifts."  While some just gave you their pitch others were obnoxiously hard sell.  I am sure people less hard-nosed than me bought timeshare condos for which 30 years later, they are just now paying off, assuming they did not sell it at a loss in the meantime.  

Yes, a bunch of fabulous prizes.  (Ours was always a sports bag.)  

When I called up to make an appointment I was told that we would get an hour pitch for a new to the area chain roughly competitive with Costco.  Why any established chain would go through this much work eludes me, so I suspect something more criminal. 

They were insistent that our spouse or partner was also present which means either a loan application or some other identity theft scam.

The time I signed up for was 7 PM Thursday night at the Courtyard Marriott in Meridian on Eagle Blvd.  When I asked for a company name, she said they would see me entering the lobby with the prize card and approach me.  This tells me the hotel is unaware of this or at least the people involved have no company name they want identified.

I think I will call Meridian PD tomorrow and see if this is something that requires investigation. 

5 comments:

  1. Some sort of high pressure sales event. Since you have the time you could go there and make their life miserable. Google the phone number and you will find info.

    P.S. you need to block your address info on the one picture!

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  2. BTW one of my favorites is the key taped to a card for a car lot. Sure the card will start a car and the recipient can just drive off...HAH!

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  3. So both you and your wife will be out of the house at 7PM Thursday? That would be good to know.


    If you were a burglar.

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  4. My brother and mother and father went to one of the Timeshare condo headlocks back in the eighties, and because by that time my father couldn't follow a conversation, when the person looked to my dad, he just looked back blankly, so they gave my brother one of the early cordless phones and moved on to another sucker. A coworker asked a bunch of pointed questions about the liability of the timeshare share owners at HIS Timeshare headlock, and made the pitchman so nervous, HE cut the ordeal short.

    If they don't want you to know their name or the name of their company, stand them up like you saw your blind date and she looked like Imogene Coca.

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  5. Googling the phone number goes directly to this explanation of what is going on. https://www.theinternetpatrol.com/about-the-amazon-gift-card-in-your-mailbox-scam/ They will undoubtedly try to sell you something in addition to collecting marketedable data that will result in even more "scammy" junk mail and/or phone calls.

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