Too Good Be True

Last August 11, 2011, I received a weird phone call from Philippine Electronic Association saying that I won a prize from GreenTop Marketing. The woman on the other side of the line said that the prizes could be any of the following: Energy Cooker with Halogen, Healthy Ozonizer, Home Theater, Multi Purpose Cooker and Clearview Glasses with Pinholes. I had no idea what those products were but winning a Home Theater sounded great to me.

Excitedly, my husband and I claimed the prize at GreenTop Marketing and this is where the weirdness all began. The staff corrected that what they were giving away was not a prize but a Thanksgiving Gift and that the phonecall that I received was because of an electronic raffle where milllions of telephone numbers were chosen from. They asked me for two valid IDs and the reference code that Philippine Electronics Association gave me. The reference code was BI9099CV. I gave them the number and they said they would verify and see which "gift" I would receive. While one of the staff was verifying the reference code, one of the staff entertained us. She even let us sit on the Chair Massager which personally I think was better than the La-Z-Boy.

While my husband was getting comfortable with the chair, the one who took my ID returned with a pair of strange looking pair of glasses. She said that the reference number given to me showed that the "gift" that matched the code was the pair of Clearview Glasses. My mom has the same pair of glasses. She bought them at an expensive price of Php.6000. So, when the woman gave the glasses to me, I took it with fake enthusiasm. I pretended to be grateful, but deep inside I sensed that a sort of elaborated script was about to take place, and I got ready to play along.The woman handed the pair of glasses and also an envelope saying that we were entitled to a special privilege. She asked us to open the envelope which says "Congratulations!". My husband opened it and inside, there was a gift certificate of Php.2000. It was too good to be true. They said that they will verify the gift certificate and ask where we could claim the prize. Then, the same woman came back excitedly and told us that at the back of the coupon, it says there that I won something else! It was really becoming weirder by the minute, but still my husband and I showed some tolerance.

The coupon says that we won the Chair Massager which was worth Php. 85,999 and a beautifying gadget (sorry, I didn't get the exact name of the product) which costs Php. 13,499. It was mind blowing, I know, but deep inside everything felt wrong. There must be a catch. Then they called someone from Makati to verify the prize and they let me speak to the person on the phone. I couldn't understand what the woman on the phone was saying because of the blaring noise from the speakers inside the shop. So my husband talked to her. The woman on the phone said that the prizes were ABSOLUTELY FREE and we can get the prizes if we satisfy the conditions at the back of the gift certificate. I knew that there was a catch! I knew that everything was too good to be true.

So the saleslady read the conditions to us. It says that it the coupon is not convertible to cash, it is. It is also non-transferrable, and we could claim it only if we avail of the two thousand gift certificate and use it in GreenTop. So the woman asked us to look at their products and asked us to choose one. My husband chose the induction Energy Cooker with grill and it costs Php. 57,000. If we buy it, we will get it only for Php 55,000 plus the chair and the beautifying gadget. They also added two more products in the package. It was an awesome deal actually, but it was also a scam. What they did was a creative yet desperate effort to sell their products. It was a good thing that I didn't have money. It was a good thing I didn't have a debit card or a credit card. If my mom were in the same situation as me, she would have bought a product and brought home all those fabulous prizes. Unfortunately, I have no money and have better sense than to buy those ridiculously overpriced things.

We went out of the store graciously, with the Clearview Glasses in hand. We wanted to get out of there as fast as we could. It was not exactly a waste of time. We got a free gift which was worth Php. 6000 and I learned two things today: 1. Don't believe anything that is too good to be true, and 2. Don't trust salesmen, they are all liars.