Spamming for Dollars

I got a glossy insert in the mail that claimed I'd won a prize.  It was a scratch-off thing: a series of three boxes.  Two read "25,000 dollars."  The middle one was what the victim potential customer had to scratch off.  Predictably, it read "25,000 dollars" once the penny was applied.  

Underneath all of that was a guarantee that everyone would win one of four prizes: 25,000K, 750 dollar gift card to a local outlet of a big chain department store, some dollar gold coins ranging from 3 on up to 100, and one dollar gold coin.  The prize depended upon which set of numbers I had on the insert.  Having a bit of time before dinner, I went down to the mall where these used car salesmen [there were no saleswomen there] were.  I'd never seen that particular rip-off technique in action and I was curious.

A young man met me at the door.  He immediately brought me over to a table and handed me a form to fill you.  "You have to register," he said.  I asked why and he replied some hogwash about knowing who came.  "So where is the poster with the number that shows my prize?" I asked.  The young man frantically tried to get me to sit in the chair and fill out the form first.  I looked around.  "Oh, there the poster is!" and I walked over to it.  I had "won" three dollars in gold coins.

I stalked back to the table and I surveyed the "registration form."  The form wanted my name, address, phone numbers, employer, if I owned a house-- a bit too nosy for a "registration form," I thought.  I spied something after my required signature on the bottom.  By signing, I was giving the company permission to pull up my credit report [to see if I was "eligible" for a "special program" in addition to getting a loan to buy one of the very polished used cars outside].  "Uh, no," I said, confiscating the pen and the form.  Then I walked out.

On her way in was a woman clutching an identical glossy insert.  "Oh, you got one of them too?" I greeted her.  "You got the same number I did.  Your prize is three one-dollar gold coins.  And they are going to ask your permission to get your credit report.  It's a rip-off," I said.  The woman smiled feebly at me, "Well, yeah," and she backed away from me toward the door.  Hey, it's [currently] a free country.  Maybe she wanted to buy a car from these people.  These people were not even from the neighborhood.  The mailing was from another state.  There was a total of four used cars outside.  And the pen that I stole had the name of yet another mall on it about four hours away.

Spam-- full of "multitudinal" variations.

sapphoq and friends