cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/19704884
A Purdue University student thought he kicked his way to a two-year car lease for making three field goals in a contest held during the Boilermakers’ season opener in West Lafayette. However, the dealership sponsoring the giveaway later reneged on the deal because of a technical. The final kick – a 40-yarder – left his foot just a split second too late on August 31. Car dealerships really cannot help but be bastards, can they?
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It was a two year lease; they weren’t giving it away. The whole point of these giveaways is to attract good attention toward the dealership. Not following through just does the opposite.
Businesses that make these offers usually buy an insurance policy against someone winning. If it’s a $10,000 prize, but extremely difficult (like a hole in one challenge), the insurance might be like $1,000. The business pays win or lose, so they’re hoping someone wins because it’s great publicity. It’s much more fun when the person awarding the prize is happy and celebrating with the winner, so in that sense it’s a good idea.
The insurance company, however, will have very specific language and will try to avoid paying even if it makes the business look bad.
I don’t know the specifics in this case, but I worked for a generator company that sponsored a long-putt challenge at a golf fundraiser. Someone won a free generator, and the insurance company tried everything to weasel out of paying. We ended up giving them the generator anyway, because the publicity would have been horrid, and it took like 18 months to get the insurance company to pay up.
Either way, it was stupid of the dealership to try to weasel out of the prize. A lease is like $350 a month times 24 months is $8,400. The kick happened at a football field named after the owner of the dealership after he donated $15 million to the university.
This was my first thought. Insurers being insurers and dickhead dealerships reacting dick-headlly.
Just so you know how this stuff works… Dealers don’t pay for this out of pocket. They pay for “prize insurance” in case someone wins and the insurance pays out.
In this case, what looks like happened is the insurance company reviewed the footage and went “Nope, not paying.” Which then fell back on the dealership to make good.
Source: Was a judge on a “hit a hole in one, win a Cadillac!” at a golf tournament. Someone did, in fact, hit a hole in one on my hole and won the car.
As always, car dealerships are a ✨ plague ✨
It’s doubly messed up when considering the dealership [Rohrman] paid a bunch of money to the recent stadium renovation so they could have their name on the field [Rohrman]
Of course they did
