[HN Gopher] 27 years ago, Hoover offered free international flig...
___________________________________________________________________
27 years ago, Hoover offered free international flights with any
PS100 purchase
Author : Anon84
Score : 136 points
Date : 2022-10-23 13:23 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thehustle.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (thehustle.co)
| vr46 wrote:
| My friend and I actually did this! We bought a Hoover, got
| flights to New York - I flew out months and months later in
| summer 1993 - and the Hoover itself we gave to my parents, and
| it's STILL there at my late parents' place, working.
|
| Helluva deal for us.
| ghaff wrote:
| I confess that I don't actually know why rebates went so far out
| of fashion. I assume companies figured out better ways to price
| discriminate and enough people got to the point of "what's a
| stamp?" that even many price sensitive people weren't reeled in
| by rebates.
|
| A random piece of trivia is that most rebate forms went to Young
| America in Minnesota. A long ago company I worked for supplied
| them with a lot of their computing gear.
| bombcar wrote:
| https://www.menards.com/main/home.html BUT lesser known
| https://www.homedepotrebates11percent.com
| OrangeMonkey wrote:
| Most "sales promotions" in the 90's were little more than fraud.
|
| Most of us remember the period where almost everything in
| computer stores were "free after rebate." "Emachine 1997 model
| FREE AFTER REBATE", "Pack of 50 CDR FREE AFTER REBATE".
|
| The rebate involved you filling out a form with the original
| proof of purchase, sending it off, and either never hearing from
| them again or having it denied. "Sorry, wrong receipt, send us
| the real one" but it was already gone.
|
| Now, I assume anything with a rebate is fraud. The insight from
| this article is that we were right.
| scarface74 wrote:
| I sent like 15 people to get free Emachines after signing up
| for MSN for two years. They all got it.
| themitigating wrote:
| Anecdotal experience
|
| I've gotten all the rebates I've filled out. I just assume that
| enough people are sloppy or don't read instructions that it
| works out for the company
| Sebguer wrote:
| An amazing spoof of this from Nathan For You comes to mind:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbC0-tuYE2o
| warbler73 wrote:
| Wow thanks for that, really good. Love the alligator.
| codekansas wrote:
| I thought the link was going to be this one:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IWotuQBgs4
| CalRobert wrote:
| I had about a 95% success rate. As a broke student in the early
| naughties I got almost everything tech FAR. CompUSA and Frys
| (pour one out) were especially good. I miss the cameraderie of
| the Black Friday Frys line.
| LegitShady wrote:
| >early naughties
|
| Haram
| musicale wrote:
| I miss Fry's Electronics, but they were definitely a
| practitioner of "free after rebate" and other rebate-based
| discount schemes where they took your money up front and
| claimed that you would get some of it back from some third
| party sometime in the future.
|
| In spite of the obviously scammy nature of such promotions, I
| still took the bait a few times, averaging probably a 50%
| rebate success rate - somewhat better than I would have
| predicted. At some point there was a web site where you could
| check your rebate status, which seemed to help a bit.
| United857 wrote:
| I forget the name but during the dot-com era there was a
| company who sold stuff like TVs at vastly inflated prices
| (something like 10x retail) to consumers on the premise that
| they could get a 100% rebate by mailing in a form thus making
| the purchase "for free".
|
| Their business model was based on the assumption that a
| percentage of customers would forget to do this. Unfortunately,
| when hundreds or thousands of $ is on the line, people were
| very diligent! Unsurprisingly that company didn't last long.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Yeah, it baffles me that whoever did the planning for this
| thought that "making it cumbersome to fill out" would work
| the same as for, say, a 5% rebate on a small purchase vs.
| when the rebate is worth thousands of dollars.
| ferrocarraiges wrote:
| I wonder if the decision-maker could have been wealthy
| enough that thousands of dollars felt insignificant to
| them. At some point, you lose sight of how much things
| cost, because the answer is almost always "not much".
|
| Reminds me of Jessica Walter's character in Arrested
| Development: "It's a banana, Michael - how much could it
| cost? Ten dollars?"
| grogenaut wrote:
| How many years till that's true
| Tarsul wrote:
| People in 2100 will laugh at that joke and think "that's
| way too cheap. What is she thinking!"
| hinkley wrote:
| When a chore pays more than your day job, people often find
| a way to get it done.
| ars wrote:
| They were called CyberRebate.
|
| I got so much stuff I didn't need from them. I filled my
| entire dining table with stuff, and got my family to help me
| with an assembly line style UPC cutting and pasting
| operation.
|
| I even scripted their website to auto-generate the rebate
| form.
|
| The final batch never paid out, but I was able to file a
| credit card chargeback for most, but not all, of it.
|
| I scripted that too. I had to print and fax around 400 pages
| of documentation to the credit card company. (Print directly
| to fax either didn't exist then, or at least I didn't have
| it.)
|
| It's been how many years? And I still have stuff from them in
| my house, some in use, some just brand new in a box.
|
| I was getting 1.5% cashback from the credit card I used, and
| everything was completely free.
| seattle_spring wrote:
| Oh man I remember that site! Adding this comment to remind
| myself to research it later.
|
| Edit: cyberrebate.com [1]
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CyberRebate
| esalman wrote:
| I bought an MSI gaming laptop in 2106 and they promised $100
| back after rebate. Never heard back.
| layer8 wrote:
| $100 is barely worth anything in 2106.
| celticninja wrote:
| Future you should probably not buy that laptop then.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I don't understand the complaint. You'll get your money in
| 2106.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| https://youtu.be/6vbCKava_JE
| whoooooo123 wrote:
| bagels wrote:
| I got most of my rebates at Frys back, but tried to avoid those
| purchases because of the hassle. I will never forget though the
| rebate that Microsoft refused to honor for the joystick I
| bought as a kid.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| You missed the first part, which was "read the instructions".
|
| I worked at a store that heavily promoted these things to get
| foot traffic. The only people with problems were the people
| lining up on Sunday meaning to fill a cart with shit they
| didn't need - or even know what it was to get it for "free".
|
| I remember one guy, who punched me in the mouth, screaming that
| he bought a scam video card "it doesn't even play tapes" for
| $14.95 and didn't get his $20 rebate for whatever reason. I
| think that he didn't include the UPC code or something. The
| medical bills after I threw him out the window, the arrest and
| fine were a lot more than $14.95.
|
| I used the free cd offers all of the time to get CD-Rs... we'd
| make custom mix CDs for the folks in our dorm.
| jimjimjim wrote:
| The world would be a much better place if more hackernews
| comments could include the phrase "I threw him out the
| window".
| bagels wrote:
| Throwing someone through a window may cross the line beyond
| self defense, but did the customer get charged too?
| jamiek88 wrote:
| It's an expression. Russians even take it further,
| 'defenestration'!
|
| I assume from the story those are the angry fellows charges
| not our hero protagonist.
|
| One can not punch a person and not expect retaliation, even
| if that person you perceive to be a social inferior to you
| doing retail work.
|
| Funny you took the complete opposite way that the clerk got
| in trouble.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Defenestration is an old term in tech circles which meant
| just the opposite - throw Windows out of your computer
| Huh1337 wrote:
| Defenestration is a Czech expression (the Czech language
| works with Latin roots a lot, even has special grammar
| for it). Russians only adopted it.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Defenestration is a term coined to describe a political
| event in Prague but I'm not sure the word itself is Czech
| but is arguably French, Latin or English in origin.
|
| > Though already existing in Middle French, the word
| defenestrate ("out of the window") is believed to have
| first been used in English in reference to the episodes
| in Prague in 1618 when the disgruntled Protestant estates
| threw two royal governors out of a window of the Hradcany
| Castle and wrote an extensive apologia explaining their
| action.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defenestrations_of_Prague
|
| But that article has no citations for that claim...
| Huh1337 wrote:
| Well I guess it depends on how you attribute words to
| languages. In Czech language it's standard practice to
| compose words with Latin stems. The word was originally
| written by a Czech person in a Czech language text using
| specialized Czech grammar for integration of Latin stems.
|
| The prefix de- is used in Czech normally since forever
| and to this day (originally Latin though), the stem
| fenestra is Latin (not normally used in Czech), and the
| suffix -ace is Czech (Slavic origin).
|
| BTW the quote you posted says the first usage in English
| language was in reference to the Czech text which
| actually coined it (thus the English text adopted it),
| not that it's English in origin.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| > The prefix de- is used in Czech normally since forever
| and to this day
|
| It's only used in loan words. Like "depilace" is a
| normally used loanword in Czech, non-loan word variant
| would be "odchlupeni". But "dechlupeni" (using "de-"
| instead of "od-" + native Czech word) would be completely
| nonsensical.
|
| Claiming that "defenestrace" is originally a Czech word
| seems absurd to me. It might have been "invented" in
| Czech lands, but clearly from the latin form.
| Huh1337 wrote:
| Hmm, _a lot_ of Czech words aren 't actually Czech, then.
| I think that makes even less sense. The fact is the Czech
| language loans heavily from many different languages
| (Latin being one of the top donors) - but that doesn't
| mean we speak a mix of languages in one sentence.
|
| The prefix de- is not used only in loanwords, you can
| construct new words with it just fine. It doesn't sound
| right in your example but that doesn't mean it's
| nonsense.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| "defenestrace" is a Czech word, "defenestration" is an
| English word, but they can both trace their origin to the
| latin "defenestratio".
|
| > The prefix de- is not used only in loanwords, you can
| construct new words with it just fine.
|
| Listing some examples would strengthen your argument
| immensely.
|
| > It doesn't sound right in your example but that doesn't
| mean it's nonsense.
|
| To my native ear, it sounds nonsensical. I wouldn't be
| able to guess what it is supposed to mean.
| Huh1337 wrote:
| Defenestratio is not a Latin word, you wouldn't describe
| the act like that as a Latin speaker. You'd say something
| involving the words "de fenestra", but definitely not as
| one word.
|
| It was the Czech person who first combined the
| Czech/Latin prefix, the Latin stem and the Czech/Slavic
| suffix in a decidedly Czech sentence.
|
| > Listing some examples would strengthen your argument
| immensely.
|
| You said one yourself. Nobody would say it because
| there's already a better way to say that, but everybody
| would understand the meaning and the grammar is fine.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| "dechlupeni" is not a Czech word.
|
| > but everybody would understand the meaning and the
| grammar is fine.
|
| No, I certainly wouldn't. It's nonsense.
|
| Can you name a word formed like that which is present in
| some dictionary?
| Huh1337 wrote:
| Even if you're right about that, it still doesn't make
| the word Latin. Latin speakers wouldn't say it as one
| word, and there would also be a verb in a Latin sentence
| - "de fenestra" by itself is nonsense.
|
| (I had the displeasure of studying Latin in school)
| The_Colonel wrote:
| > Latin speakers wouldn't say it as one word
|
| Note that all Latin speakers in that time period spoke
| Latin as their second (third...) language, and it was
| pretty common to see influence of other (mother)
| languages onto the used Latin. It wouldn't be surprising
| if e.g. a German native speaker (where such word
| concoctions are common place) coined such a Latin word.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| It would also be unsurprising to see a native speaker of
| classical Latin coin such a Latin word. _defenestro_ and
| _defenestratio_ are perfectly compatible with the normal
| methods of word formation in classical Latin, which very
| rarely forms compound nouns, but which forms compounds of
| verbs with prepositional prefixes all the time. (Just in
| that last sentence, you can see the ghostly remains of
| _perfectus_ [thoroughly-done], _compono_ [with-put],
| _praepositio_ [before-putting], and _praefixus_ [before-
| fastened], all impeccably classical. You can also see
| _compatior_ [with-endure], which does not seem to have
| existed in classical Latin, but is obviously derived in
| exactly the same way as the others.)
|
| Here ( https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=defat
| igatio&la=... ) is a dictionary entry citing
| _defatigatio_ to a speech given by Cicero.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Do you have sources or references for any of this? I
| can't find any sources that dig into by who or in what
| text "defenstrate" was originally coined. You say it is
| in reference to "the Czech text" but don't clarify which
| text you qre talking about? The quote is posted makes no
| reference to any text...
|
| The best discussion of the original formation of the word
| I have been able to find was here: https://linguistics.st
| ackexchange.com/questions/35905/did-a-...
| saiya-jin wrote:
| its a czech _practice_ with few town-hall people in
| Prague few centuries ago IIRC, not a czech word per se
| throwayyy479087 wrote:
| Defenestration and defenestrate are words in English and
| Spanish as well. It's a common concept
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| Not to be mistaken with transfenestration which is
| something you do yearly to prove you are still insane and
| keep getting your check.
| notch656a wrote:
| ceejayoz wrote:
| That's likely to depend on at least a) the height of the
| window - a first floor window will be treated very
| differently than a tenth floor one - and b) the distance
| from the altercation to the window.
| notch656a wrote:
| Spooky23 wrote:
| The guy jumped me as I retreated and got tossed away from
| the crowd. (Hell I was making $4.50/hr + spiffs, not there
| to fight people) Fortunately, I spent most of my teenage
| years doing farm work, and it was all caught on camera.
|
| The cops thought it was great. My boss not so much. The
| whole thing was absurd - an adult attacking a 19 year old
| over a few dollars.
| greenthrow wrote:
| /r/ThatHappened
| Larrikin wrote:
| I don't know about the nineties, but nearly every single rebate
| offer I've ever filled out I've gotten the money promised.
| Sometimes it takes a while but most of them are online and you
| just fill in your bank account information. Takes at most a
| couple minutes. Some random amount of months later you get a
| deposit in your account.
|
| I also try to do any of those class action suits I qualify for.
| Those are a little more hit or miss but it's about the same
| time investment of a simple form, but usually those take a lot
| longer to get money. Got a check for 3 bucks for buying chips
| at some point in the past couple years, but it was really nice
| getting hundreds of dollars put into my bank account from
| Facebook a few months back after filing a claim years ago and
| forgetting about it.
| vermooten wrote:
| Not quite true, but I can see why you'd think that. I worked
| for a reputable SP company in Oxfordshire, legal were all over
| everything we did. The Hoover debacle did wonders for our
| business, all of a sudden clients wanted protection from the
| scammers.
|
| But ok I then went to one in London and some directors were
| sent to prison for fraud. So OP yes you have a point. It was a
| dodgy world.
| treeman79 wrote:
| Mad dad was obsessed with those cd and floppy disk rebates.
|
| I believe he got paid every time or close to.
| notyourwork wrote:
| I don't recall ever getting one denied. Maybe I was lucky but
| those CD rebates were huge for me as a kid to have infinite
| supply of media to write content to. Music, games, apps, etc.
| astura wrote:
| Yep, Same, I've filled out probably 25+ rebates in my life
| and I always got the rebate, eventually. You have to make
| sure you read and follow the fine print though - the
| instructions are very specific. The GP probably didn't read
| the fine print.
|
| I still have several spindles of CD-Rs (and later DVD-Rs)
| that were free (or maybe $1) after rebate.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Similar 'cashback' deals exist even now... You rarely get
| 100% back. Often there isn't too much fine print either,
| and the payout rate is ~90% in my experience.
|
| Sometimes they insist in paying in amazon vouchers or some
| other 'almost cash' currency.
|
| They are very common on subscriptions.
| astura wrote:
| Oh, you don't have to tell me, I have made several
| hundred dollars on these deals - I only do money makers
| (where the cash back is more than the cost of the
| subscription). Plus one of my friends can always use the
| subscription stuff and are thrilled to get the items if
| it's not something I'd use. (Such as makeup & dog toys).
| I've always had the correct payout. I have a browser that
| I solely use for cash back websites.
|
| I usually find out about these deals on
| https://www.doctorofcredit.com/ which is run by what
| seems like fantastic, non-scammy, people and its the only
| credit card blog that I know of that's independent. The
| rest shill for referrals.
| Fatnino wrote:
| Amazon bucks are the closest thing to cash.
|
| Other things used as cash include gift cards, cigarettes,
| drugs, bikes, iDevices, baby formula, diapers, laundry
| detergent...
| ghaff wrote:
| >Amazon bucks are the closest thing to cash.
|
| Although, generally speaking, Amazon and other general
| purpose large retailers (Walmart, Home Depot) have
| figured that out. When I get rewards points of some sort
| with an option to convert to various gift cards, the best
| deal is always with the specialty retailers but then you
| need to make a point of using the card for something you
| really want/need as opposed to just adding some dollars
| to your Amazon account.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| I wrote my first web app to track my rebates :). Even had
| some sign ups. Vbscript with an Access database. Worked
| pretty well.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| I bought a lot of stuff with rebates and I almost always got a
| check after a very long wait. Sometimes you had to call the
| number to make them send it out. It was fine when I didn't make
| much money but after a while it was too much hassle.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| And that is the point: price discrimination. For some 22
| dollars is expensive, so they will do some work for the 12-14
| dollar rebate. People making good monies won't care too much,
| or not at all.
| raisedbyninjas wrote:
| An early internet promotion that would have probably been more
| costly if they had the same advertising reach was online casino
| deposit bonuses. In the early 2000s it was popular for online
| casinos to offer bonuses on deposits used to play. Say 50% or
| 100% bonus up to $2000. The only catches were one bonus per
| household and you had to bet at least the full amount of the
| deposit and bonus before cashing out. There was no limit on the
| game to use it with or other hoops to jump through. So it was
| pretty easy nearly break even in black-jack for 30 minutes, cash
| out, and move onto the next.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| Every single word of your post was great, correct, but
| meaningless at the time except for two words near the end.
|
| Cash. Out.
|
| Man, I went through all those hoops, spent weeks, scamming
| those systems, real money too, but mostly playing the game you
| outlined but when it came time to get that money suddenly that
| sites admins were in cayman. Then Bermuda. Then Sri Lanka and
| their English suddenly wasn't too good!
|
| Once I ended up with a _perosnal cheque_ from one of their guys
| as I was bitching on the forum making them look bad.
|
| Can't believe a) I cashed it and it and b) it wasn't a scam.
| raisedbyninjas wrote:
| Believable. I just never had a problem or weird delay.
| kuboble wrote:
| I actually got 600$ from an online casino like that. (2007
| iirc)
|
| I got free 50$ but had to wager 2k$ before cashing out.
| Played some slot machine, run hot and had 600$ by the time
| the bonus cleared. I took out cash from ATM a couple days
| later.
| davidgerard wrote:
| (2019)
| cosmodisk wrote:
| This and entry level books on legal contracts make a fantastic
| read on how things can go wrong very quickly for those who
| promise heaven and then some more.
| musicale wrote:
| Disastrous promotions notwithstanding, didn't Dyson eclipse
| Hoover by developing a greatly improved design (bagless/cyclonic,
| which has since become a popular standard design for vacuum
| cleaners?)
| tfsh wrote:
| My mother used this to go on holiday (Greece if I recall, however
| I may be many thousands of miles off). We still have the very
| same Hoover, so for her it wasn't a bad deal.
| NomDePlum wrote:
| Myself and a friend bought a hoover for the flights to the U.S.
|
| I've no memory of the application process being difficult and we
| even returned the hoover to the store and swapped it for the
| equivalent in Sega mega drive games without any issues.
|
| I actually went out to the US separately as part of a student
| work America summer visa and my friend and another person used
| the voucher to meet me in Orlando. This was definitely late 1992
| so very sure the quote about no flights being honoured initially
| aren't accurate.
| paulpauper wrote:
| It's sorta like this with many vc-backed companies. Operate at a
| loss to get market share in the hope that some customers can be
| billed later or raise prices.
| noncoml wrote:
| Isn't that the plot for "Crazy Stupid Love"
| traceroute66 wrote:
| I don't know, I'd say "one of the worst".
|
| To be truly "worst", I'd say you'd have to feature in the
| textbooks of students of English contract law.
|
| See, for example, _Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Company_ [1]
| which is a famous example used in every single textbook.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlill_v_Carbolic_Smoke_Ball_...
| ghaff wrote:
| Ah the opening of _The Paper Chase_ film. Well worth watching
| by the way if you haven 't.
| amelius wrote:
| How about:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepsi_Number_Fever
|
| > Pepsi Number Fever, also known as the 349 incident, was a
| promotion held by PepsiCo in the Philippines in 1992, which led
| to riots and the deaths of at least five people.
|
| Somehow, the company and the brand still exist.
| bsjaux628 wrote:
| From the article, 3 victims were PepsiCo workers and 2 were a
| teacher and a student that were caught in the blast of a pipe
| bomb thrown at a PepsiCo truck. How is the company to blame
| for the action of a mob of idiots and anarchists?
| karthickgururaj wrote:
| This was recently covered in depth in "Now I Know" [0] - a random
| corner of Internet with quirky collection of articles. I have
| been a happy reader these past many weeks.
|
| [0] https://nowiknow.com/the-marketing-stunt-that-vacuumed-
| up-a-...
| mellosouls wrote:
| This reminds me of American Airlines "Lifetime Unlimited First-
| Class Flying" pass snapped up by a lucky few to AA's regret.
|
| https://simpleflying.com/american-airlines-aairpass/
| ww520 wrote:
| The U.S. Treasury used to run a promotion on the online sale of
| dollar coins to encourage the usage of them in circulation. They
| accepted credit cards for the online purchases and shipped the
| coins free of charge. People just bought them with credit cards
| that gave rebates, points, or miles, and then deposited the coins
| in banks to get back the cash.
| no_wizard wrote:
| I have heard of this before. I even met someone who claimed
| they they would do this with their high cash back cards and
| claimed to reap thousands in rewards with unlimited cash back.
| Even said they would open new cards to do this with they high
| dollar promo periods and high credit limits and would just do
| this while the promotion was active.
|
| Claimed to have made thousands on it, maybe even 10s of
| thousands
|
| I always wondered if your credit scorn would be all jacked
| because it would report this high to zero usage
| arcanemachiner wrote:
| > I always wondered if your credit scorn would be all jacked
| because it would report this high to zero usage
|
| I shall add this to my list of unverifiable FICO score
| rumors.
| matgessel wrote:
| > temporary impact on your credit score. Applying for
| multiple credit cards at once will reduce your score for a
| few months; if you will be applying for a mortgage, car loan,
| job, apartment, or other situation that requires a check of
| your credit, it is a good idea to stop all churning activity
| as far in advance as possible. Most conservative estimates
| recommend at least 2 years as "hard pulls" from credit card
| inquiries will fall off your credit report in 2 years.
|
| > your homeowners insurance rate can be impacted by your
| churning activity, even though your credit score remains
| high. Your insurer regular does a soft pull on your credit,
| and they may increase your rate if there are a lot of new
| credit lines, even though your overall credit score and
| utilization may remain in good standing.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/wiki/index
| userbinator wrote:
| It's called "manufactured spending".
| byoung2 wrote:
| Also in the running:
| https://www.cbc.ca/radio/undertheinfluence/the-bottle-cap-sn...
| II2II wrote:
| Given the phrasing of the article, it sounds like an "honest"
| mistake in Pepsi's case. The intent to distribute two prizes
| likely means the number was predetermined or that it was to be
| selected from a small pool of numbers that had a low run.
|
| On the other hand, the Hoover example was based upon pure
| dishonesty. They made a claim, put in a bunch of rules to
| disqualify people, took steps to slant the rules in their
| favour, then hoped it would be enough to win the numbers game.
| Hope because they were relying upon assumptions that were very
| much out of their control.
| permo-w wrote:
| sounds like pepsi got off lightly
| permo-w wrote:
| it worked once, so let's do it again - but BIGGER - is such a
| classic business mistake
| fabianhjr wrote:
| Also ignoring any sort of risk analysis; its hilarious that
| they were warned by risk professionals and decided to proceed
| anyways.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Reading this and how unprofitable the offer was it almost
| seems like they (i.e., executives) intentionally tanked the
| company. The inspiration for Ted Lasso? :)
|
| "The math was concerning: On the sale of a PS119 vacuum
| cleaner, Hoover made a profit of PS30. The two free fights
| that came with it were worth at least PS600. This meant that
| each customer who followed through with the promotion cost
| Hoover PS570."
| fiftyacorn wrote:
| Sad thing was it was a last ditch attempt to save jobs at a few
| hoover factories in the UK. Redundancies followed and the last
| factories closed in 2002
| bbarnett wrote:
| The trick with "under the cap" winnings, was to ship the lot with
| the grand prize, to a slow consumption area.
|
| I grew up in a rural area, but one with a tourist season. The
| population almost tripled in tourist season, and tourists consume
| far more "on the run" consumables.
|
| More than one local won the grand prize, months after a 6 month
| contest ended.
|
| I won a brand new car, 2 months past win date.
| syrrim wrote:
| Meaning they didn't even honour it? Very shady.
| andylynch wrote:
| Really impressive. That's a bigger fiasco than when Gerald Ratner
| said out loud that a prawn sandwich would outlast the earrings
| sold in his stores.
| crustycoder wrote:
| Don't what the problem was, I got _my_ free holiday to Orlando
| out of it, on the day I wanted and from the airport I wanted...
| ;-)
|
| The article missed out one important detail - the deal included
| very overpriced accommodation, which is how they were going to
| claw the cost of the flights back. But they failed to make
| booking the accommodation through the deal mandatory, so people
| took the flights and not the accommodation.
| IMSAI8080 wrote:
| Yep and overpriced travel insurance too. It wasn't just the
| bureaucratic restrictions they were relying on. The plan was
| the travel agents would do high pressure upselling to claw back
| the cost but the public didn't bite in sufficient numbers.
|
| http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3704669.stm
| drc500free wrote:
| Basically, Groupon.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| I think this "sales promotion" is actually just fraud?
| ouid wrote:
| Yeah the white washing of this extremely clear cut case of
| fraud is journalistic malpractice. "Oh look at these cheeky
| things Hoover did to try to "fleece" their customers in a
| flagrant attempt to breach contract." This is like the toy yoda
| story.
| chrisgd wrote:
| Is this what you are referring to?
| https://www.boredpanda.com/toy-yoda-toyota-hooters-prank-
| gon...
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