“You could be a winner! No purchase necessary!"

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Are they encouraging people to shoplift?

Probably not. How did you come to that conclusion from a phrase commonly used to scam unsuspecting fools?

I never did really understand the phrase because it would be shown at the end of commercials, and the whole point of commercials is to get you to buy their stuff, no matter how stupid and useless it may be.

In the bad old days companies would offer sweepstake type prizes, BUT you would have to buy their product to enter the sweepstakes. Buy this pocket fisher from Crapco for 19.95 and then you will have a one in a million chance of winning a then thousand dollars. That way anyone dumb enough to think they have a shot at winning would buy the products. Basically bribing you to buy their product. And its not even an honest bribe because its such a longshot that any individual would actually win.

But (as I understand it) they legislated actual laws against companies requiring you to buy stuff enter contests like that.

They could still offer contests with prizes, but folks should be allowed a shot at winning regardless of whether they buy anything.

So that is why today the companies will advertise that "no purchase is necessary" to enter the sweepstakes. You have a shot if you fill out the paperwork, and ya don't even hafta buy our crappy product.

..." Yoj may already have won! "

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One of the walking wounded ~ SMASHED DOWN by life and age, now prevented from even expressing myself! SOB.
" Oh, no! First you have to PROVE you deserve to go away to college! " ~ My mother, 1978 (the heyday of Andy Gibb and Player). I would still like to go.
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