Congratulations, You’ve Won… Nothing

While visiting a news site recently, a pop-up appeared notifying MrConsumer that he had a chance to win one of four or five valuable prizes, including an Ipad 2, a Dell laptop, an iPhone, etc.

Scrolling down further on the page were three testimonials from previous winners, including one who lives in my home town — Somerville, Massachusetts. What a coincidence!

MrConsumer googled the local winner, Jason Meeks, and discovered a person in Boston by that name was jailed in 2008 for manslaughter and sentenced to 17 years. I don’t think he’s been busy entering too many contests.

Doing a bit of further research using part of Jason’s quote, turned up a host of other websites where the apparently very lucky Jason was also winning iPads. But, apparently he must have transferred prisons.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Now Jason Meeks appears to be from California. Looks like he and Jennifer Layton, the person pictured first above, swapped homes because she is now in Somerville instead of Los Angeles. And the guy in the middle, Mr. Wong, maybe is also wanted by the law, because he changed his name from Jason to Jesse. Well at least he won’t have to throw out his monogrammed towels.

As it turns out this trio was indeed very lucky, because on yet another site, they were also big winners.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Now it appears that Jennifer Layton has settled down in the Boston area, but her name is now Jennifer Louie. Maybe she got married. And our friend, Mr. Wong, has once again taken on a different first name — this time, it’s Jeff. He really seems to like the “J” names. Lastly, our jailbird Jason Meeks seems to have transferred prisons once again, this time to New York. And now he is known by a different name as well. Maybe he doesn’t want the other prisoners to catch on to all the iPads he’s won.

Under FTC guidelines, testimonials presented as being made by real people must be real and represent their honest opinions. Clearly, what the research uncovered suggests otherwise.