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Fedder and Brothers Partnership

Fedder and Brothers Partnership

A gold sun charm on a gold chain on a white background"This office takes pleasure in notifying you that you are a guaranteed cash prize recipient in the Fedder & Brothers Partnership's International Cash Sweepstakes, and we urgently request that you return the enclosed Form 2719, bearing your personal Cash Claim Number BX321 0730044484 immediately, allowing us to rush your cash prize to you by International air post."

Can you pick what's wrong with this opening paragraph from Fedder & Brothers Partnership? Let's go through a couple of the issues that we have.

Firstly, Fedder & Brothers Partnership "urgently request that you return the enclosed Form 2719" found on the second page of the material they sent to dozens of WA consumers. We feel this paragraph leads the recipient to believe that in order to participate in the sweepstakes and claim any prize they might be entitled they must send in Form 2719...but that's not true. According to the Official Cash Award Rules all you need to do to claim your cash award is send a postcard to Fedder & Brothers Partnership with certain details on it. You don't need to pay anything to collect your prize at all.

The second issue with their opening paragraph is the claim that if you immediately return your Form 2719, Fedder & Brothers Partnership will "rush your cash prize to you by International air post", so you'd think that if you've won something you could get it straight away. That's not entirely accurate. If you're one of the minor prizewinners, they will send your prize during the promotional period. The Grand and First Prize winners will not be announced until the contest ends. That's a long time to wait for a rushed prize...!

So why would Fedder & Brothers Partnership want you to rush to send back your copy of Form 2719? Well if you pay the fee of $24.95, they send you a gold pendant which we suspect will be worth a lot less than $25, and if you don't send the fee they automatically disqualify you from the sweepstakes and don't even have to pay you the minor cash prize that you were guaranteed.

I knew it sounded too good to be true...and deep down so did you, didn't you...?

...if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is...!