It is night. You are tired. You are cynical. You are in no mood to flip through the mail and discover another letter declaring you the proud winner of a fabulous and unique offer that could (fade into fine print replete with conditions) make you a multimillionaire.
You think: What a scam.
But wait. Don`t throw out that winning envelope.
First, a word from David C. Koobs of Davie, Fla., who really, truly, no fine-print equivocations, won $10 million in a Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes.
Says Koobs, 47, a regular guy in jeans: ”When they told me, I was just totally buzzed out. I mean, $10 million. They gave me a trip to New York, too. The Plaza Hotel. I was afraid to sit on the commode because it was made of gold.”
January is sweepstakes season, when urgent and fantastic offers clog your mailbox. Lots of folks think they`re a hoax-and some are.
But the more reputable promotions-Publishers Clearing House, American Family Publishers, Reader`s Digest and a few others-really do deliver the goods as promised. And people like Koobs (who still goes to work in the mornings) really do become millionaires overnight.
The most recent Publishers Clearing House drawing, for a measly $1 million, was held Friday. If you won, the Prize Patrol will fly to your hometown and surprise you with balloons and champagne. Or you could try for $10 million, which is the grand prize offered by American Family Publishers. You have probably seen Ed McMahon, famous for being famous, hyping the countdown on a TV near you.
No one knows for sure how many people play the sweeps; promoters won`t say. Nor will they reveal the astronomical odds of winning. But one thing is sure: Business is booming.
Sweepstakes, it seems, are especially popular in a recession. When times get desperate, the desperate fill out forms, and we`re not talking
unemployment. But rich people play, too.
”A 29-cent stamp can net you a million bucks,” says Al Wester of Ventura Associates, a New York sales promotion agency. ”And that`s the American Dream-something for nothing.”
Herschell Gordon Lewis, a direct-mail guru from Plantation, Fla., is less charitable: ”People are driven by greed. Greed is what makes `em mail that form back in.”
It works like this: Many a morning across America, hundreds of people sit down to breakfast with a stack of envelopes containing ”involvement devices”-little gold circles or squares or stars that say yes! and come with instructions to peel and stick. Involvement devices involve you in the game. And, the sponsors hope, in buying whatever the company sells.
But remember, you don`t have to buy anything, not even a magazine subscription. Legitimate sweepstakes do not require any payment or evidence of any skill.
About the only conditions for playing are (1) get out of the bed in the morning, and (2) know where your mailbox is.
”The legitimate companies do a magnificent job,” says Frank Dierson, general counsel at Promotion Marketing Association of America in New York.
”You never find a deception.”
Not every company is legitimate. ”I have a couple of offers on my desk that tell me I have a beautiful motorboat down in Texas,” Dierson adds.
”That kind of thing is ridiculous.”
Over the years, Publishers Clearing House, the granddaddy of sweepstakes, has forked over $51 million in prizes to more than 2 million people. The money usually comes in annual installments, payable over 30 years, with a sizable chunk due the first year and a nice, tidy bonus the last. Prizes are secured by U.S. Treasury bonds, but, still, some people are skeptical.
Now that you mention it, some people suspect that the $10 million giveaway to Koobs was a phony. Heck, some people think Koobs is a phony.
”There may be many people living in Miami, but it is still a small town,” an irate Magi Braun wrote Publishers Clearing House. ”If one of ours had won your $10,000,000 Superprize XII, we would have known about it.”
Apparently not. Koobs, however, has proof.
The Prize Patrol informed Koobs of his good fortune on Valentine`s Day 1991 at North Shore Medical Center in Miami, where he helps put patients to sleep before surgery. The Patrol summoned Koobs, still in surgical scrubs, to the lobby. Then the Patrol chief held up a sign announcing the Superprize.
Later, Publishers Clearing House presented Koobs with a videotape of himself looking absolutely amazed by his big win. They also mailed him a photo album of 8-by-10 color glossies.
Says Koobs, who bought a new house and a snappy build-it-yourself sports car with some of his take, ”The Prize Patrol, they`re like family.”
Other success stories abound.
The Prize Patrol shocked the socks off retiree Bill Perkins, who lives near Tampa, when it showed up on his doorstep in September. Perkins won a cool million.
How did he spend it? ”My wife has had several successful shopping trips.”
And in Denton, Texas, a $10 million windfall prompted salesman Bob Castleberry to do something crazy: quit his job and run for mayor. Now he presides over Denton, ”invests conservatively” and toots around town in his new white Rolls-Royce, which he purchased after trading in his new white Cadillac. He also established four college scholarships for the needy.
Not everyone feels that way. Anna Hoeing, 81, of New Port Richey, Fla., was delighted when she and her husband won $67,000. But her extended family fought over the cash, she said, and things got sticky. Now Mr. Hoeing, 87, wants a divorce.
”It`s the same old story,” Anna Hoeing laments. ”If you don`t have money, you want it. And if you have it, you just want more.”
