OT Rant: SMS games: How can this be legal…?
<RANT>When I tuned in to watch the news just now, I happened to catch a commercial for yet another SMS game. “Win a free Nintendo Wii!”, the commercial screamed.
Let’s see how free “free” actually is…
First of all, most of these games are subscription based (even though they only print that in unreadable text) and so is this one. €6 per week. In almost transparent tiny letters, the commercial says that this game ends on December 31st (their website does not mention the end date). So if I enter the game today, that still leaves me about 25 weeks. The subscription alone will cost you €150.
But that’s not all! You also have to answer a bunch of questions to actually get a chance at winning the console. Each question costs you an additional €1,5 (on top of the actual cost of the SMS)! The commercial doesn’t say anything about how many questions you get. Out of curiosity, I visited the advertised (although also in tiny almost unreadable letters) website and found that there are 15 questions per week! That’s an additional €22,5 per week adding up to a grand total of €712,5. And that only gives you a chance to win the console! You can almost buy 3 Wii consoles for that price…
This is just one example. There are dozens if not hundreds of other examples like this one. Is it just me or is this a very obvious rip off? Some of you will probably think that no one falls for an obvious scam like this. However, if you switch on any music television station, you see commercials like this every 10 minutes or so. Since these commercials also cost money, it’s obvious that people DO fall for this… So… Let me ask this… How can this be legal?</RANT>
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Absolutely agree with you there serge. What is even more upsetting is the fact that these scams/schemes happen pretty much anywhere in the world and the one thing they have in common is obviously the way they are trying to make sure you don’t get to read the fineprint or even figure out how to get out of these scams.
I’m still baffled everytime i see one of this adverts and suprised that they apparently seem to be profitable. You would think people would know better .. guess i’m wrong …
In the UK, if they advertise “free” then I believe (by law) there has to be a free entry route – normally this is by post or by going to the website. Usually the free entry routes are advertised in the T&C text in very small letters, but it usually is there…