Lucky Friday the 13th?

Last Friday, Rene got home quite drunk after some drinking session with his officemates. He told me he had good news. So I asked him what's the good news. He said he won a raffle and the prize was a 3 days, 2 nights accommodation in Boracay! My first reaction was, really? I thought he might be joking.

He wasn't joking. But the other question i asked was, was it for real? I mean it might be a scam. He told me the circumstances on how he got to be in the raffle. It so happened that while he was waiting for me at Trinoma (I don't remember when) and there was an Isuzu car show, a sales lady asked him to join a raffle. He didn't buy anything though.

I thought what do you know, an unfortunate incident of me being late and Rene spending time at the car show, just happened to join the raffle and then won a major prize on a Friday the 13th. Talk about ironies.

Anyway, we really thought it was real. The caller who informed him of the prize told him that it is valid for 3 mos and that it will be awarded supposedly yesterday with a free lunch/dinner (our choice) at Astoria club in Tomas Morato.

I kept thinking maybe there is a catch. But they seem legit as every time Rene asked for directions how to get there, they answer promptly. However, every person we told about it also kept thinking if it might be a scam. So before leaving for the 6pm dinner we scheduled, Rene searched over the internet about the promo and the place. He found out from one blog that they are going to make you sign an agreement that you're willing to listen to a 90-min presentation after your lunch/dinner.

Anyhow, we still showed up at Club Astoria to see for ourselves and personally ask if they are going to sell us anything. We arrived around 5:45pm and some people were already there. We waited till the couple who arrived ahead of us went in. They seem to be hesitant too though. When the girl at the front desk entertained us, that was when we asked what the 90-min show was for. She explained that they were just going to show a presentation about their hotels. She did not elaborate much. We told her about our concerns and our expectations (Rene remembers being told about the 90-min presentation over the phone but his idea was it would be shown while eating dinner). Apparently, it will be a sort of one-on-one presentation. We just told her that we might not have that much time to spare. She emphasized too that it's actually a minimum of 90-mins and that it could extend further.

That was it. We decided not to go through with it. We did not want to waste hours for nothing. It's just unbelievable that they have to "require" people to listen to them in order to sell something. And it's deceitful to entice people to claim prizes they thought they won when in fact they are asking for something in return.

There are a lot of similar marketers like this. We've already experienced it first hand with Family First a long time ago. I can't believe we actually ended up spending 3hours there! Most of it just waiting. And the remaining was arguing why we couldn't leave when we wanted to. I pity those people who they did fool and gave in just to make them happy.

Btw, in case you're curious what Club Astoria has to say (as I am) in the presentation, you might want to check out this blog: http://momtofourbeta.blogspot.com/2007/03/my-disgusting-experience.html

I'm glad we didn't go through with it.