Honolulu Lite

by Charles Memminger

Friday, November 12, 1999

You may already
be a loser!

YOU have to be something of a detective to figure out what the direct-marketing geniuses are trying to sell you by mail these days.

I guess they can't just send you a brochure asking you to subscribe to a magazine. Instead, they have to camouflage their mailings to look like top secret government missives that demand your immediate attention.

I got one the other day that looked like it came from the Pentagon. It had a huge bar code thingy on the cover with a tracking number, so that if it got lost, I guess the FBI could track it down.

Clearly this was a come-on. My job as a detective was to figure out what kind of come-on.

The single sheet of paper inside the envelope urged me to call a toll-free number as soon as possible. Apparently, someone was giving away a million bucks and I was the lucky fella they wanted to give it to.

I turned the paper over and was met by streams of type so small a gnat would need a magnifying glass to read it. Not only that, but the type face apparently was something like Bodini Dim. It was so faint, it looked like gray carpet fuzz. This type was barely visible to the human eye, almost incapable of being read, which, I suppose, was the point.

The only thing legible was a line that described the vast amount of gray matter as the rules for the "The Million Dollar 'Strike It Rich' Sweepstakes."

JUST for fun, I put the rules under a scanning electron microscope -- the type used to view your smaller viruses -- and set out to decipher them. Here's some of the translation:

"Sponsor is not responsible for error, omission, interruption, deletion, defect, delay in operations or transmission, theft or destruction or unauthorized access to or alterations of entry materials, or for technical, network, telephone, equipment failure, electronic, computer hardware or software malfunctions of any kind, or inaccurate transmission of or failure to receive entry information by sponsor on account of technical problems or traffic congestion on the Internet or at any Web site or any combination thereof."

I don't know why anyone would set out to construct such a sentence, but I'll bet there were a few lawyers nearby. That sentence could stop a barge on the Mississippi. It means basically that the sponsors can do anything short of taking a life and not be legally liable.

"Any sweepstakes notice that results from a printing, production, typographical, mechanical, or other error will be void." That means if they accidentally screw up and tell you you've won a million dollars, they don't have to give it to you.

"Canadian residents, in order to win, must first correctly answer a time-limited skill testing question administered by mail." I'm not sure what that means, but it sounds kind of snotty. Apparently, the sponsors don't like dumb Canadians.

"One prize of $1,000,000 will be awarded as an annuity payable in 30 annual installments." In other words, you don't get a million dollars. You get a yearly salary equal to that made by a night manager at Burger Boy.

"Odds of winning are 1:250 million." Ah, now we've got it. Seeing as how there are about 250 million people in the United States and the smarter parts of Canada, your odds of winning your Burger Boy night manager salary are nil.

All this just to sell me a magazine?

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Charles Memminger, winner of
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
awards in 1994 and 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite"
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write to him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802
or send E-mail to charley@nomayo.com or
71224.113@compuserve.com.

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