So I got a “Magic Match Scratch N Win” flyer in the mail today. I scratched it our of curiosity, and “won”. Upon looking into this further, I found out that all of the tickets are “winners” – so what’s up with it (no company could afford to give away this many prizes), and if it’s a scam, why is a company like Canada Post, that is government affiliated, allowing scam companies to penetrate our mailboxes and homes with scams?
Let’s see what we know about these tickets. The tickets themselves are all winners.
It states at the back of the ticket that you must be a home owner and agree to a homecare product demonstration to qualify for the prize. It does not indicate what company sent these, or what company will be awarding the prizes. It has two (what look like stamped in) Edmonton phone numbers to contact and claims they are the “prize redemption centre” – upon calling, someone very polite answered. He was NOT pushy. He did say that because my card was a winner, I own my home, and agreed to the product demo, I am GUARUNTEED one of the 5 prizes as shown on the scratch card. 
He also told me that the company doing the demo is some sort of clean water solution that tests your water and then offers you some sort of replacement for bottled water for your home. I looked this up and apparently the same flyers went around in 2010/2011. The reviews for the company all seem positive from what I can find, but NO WINNERS HAVE EVER BEEN ANNOUCNED, ANYWHERE.
As a business owner myself, I understand that give aways are expensive, but if they are in exchange for advertising, they are worth the cost. I also understand that having flyers delivered by Canada Post can get VERY costly. On the other hand, I also fully understand that promising a give away in exchange for something (whether it be advertising or otherwise) is extremely misleading, dishonest, and we have a broadcast standard here in Canada, in which I am pretty sure every business has to uphold when putting out an advertisement, meaning if the company promises something, especially if they have a verbal contract with you (ie: if you let us into your home to demonstrate and pitch our product, we will give you x prize), they need to uphold this.
I decided to make an appointment (which will be the afternoon of the 7th of September, 2017), to see how legitimate this offer is. If they are giving away prizes this expensive, I would love to see what this miracle product is that they have that have made them so many millions of dollars that their advertising/promo budget is this high to give away such big prizes. If not, then I think we have some questions for our advertising standards, and for Canada Post – do you care about the legitimacy of the items you are making mandatory for our mail carriers to deliver to us, about scams, or did you just want the cash from whoever it may be sending us junk? We will find out tomorrow – I will post a part 2 to this story after I meet with the representative from this mystery company whose name is missing from their flyer. Hopefully this will either save some Canadians from wasting their time, or allow a whole bunch of us to get some ridiculous prizes.
See part 2/2 HERE.
My husband worked for a door to door vacuum SALES company back in 2009 and he delivered very similar cards with prizes and when people CALLED that won (every card is a winner) he would go demonstrate the vacuum and the people would get the Prize at the end of the PITCH…Or a lot if money off the vacuum instead . The vacuum was very EXPENSIVE. If you did a good job you sold a vacuum and never had to give out the prizes.