Sues direct mailing company that allegedly offered fake wins to a ton of Hoosiers
You get a car! And you get a car!
Hopkins & Raines Inc. (H&R), a direct mail company headquartered in Texarkana, Texas, has stirred up a hornet's nest in Indianapolis.
Indiana Attorney General Curtis T. Hill, Jr. caught wind of a series of mailings sent by H&R on behalf of car dealers in more than 50 separate campaigns. The mailings, which targeted more than 2 million Indiana residents, included a "game piece" that entitled winners to any number of prizes listed in the main mailing.
And the prizes weren't shabby: up to $25,000 cash, a $1,000 Walmart gift card, large-screen HDTVs, and boats or cars from dealerships that were H&R's clients. Sounds good, right?
Cheap exchange
Not so fast. Hill's office claims that all the game pieces that were sent out were "winning" pieces. The mailings "included a game piece only to generate excitement and deceive recipients into believing they won a significant prize to drive attendance at the corresponding Sales Events in order to provide H&R and the sponsoring dealerships with opportunities to sell recipients motor vehicles," the complaint reads.
When the "winner" showed up at the car dealership, game piece in hand, the suit alleges that "the recipient was provided an item of nominal value as a 'prize,' such as a $5.00 Walmart gift card, a cheap MP3 player, or a scratch-off lottery ticket."
The takeaway
The suit, filed last month in Indiana's Morgan County Circuit/Superior Court, hit H&R with 10 counts, including failing to communicate required disclosures and misrepresenting the value of the prizes under Indiana's Promotional Gifts and Contests Act, and misrepresenting that mailing recipients were winners under the state's Deceptive Consumer Sales Act. Along with a permanent injunction against future misrepresentations, the suit seeks consumer restitution for the targets of the promotions, to the tune of $500 per person.
At more than 2 million recipients, that's a hefty price to pay for a promotion.
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