You've Won!*

The recent massive housecleaning that I've forced myself to endure has yielded some archived material that I thought I'd share with you. The below is from April of 2001, when I was trying to write for the now-defunct service Themestream. (Odd how I first thought it was called "The Me Stream.") I'm not entirely certain what I was trying to achieve with the below, or with any of the other crap I posted, which I will pass on to you in the coming days. Regardless, enjoy.

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You've Won!*
April 9, 2001

* - Reading the following essay does NOT constitute your acceptance of any offers contained therein, NOR does it constitute an agreement that you will deposit any funds into my bank account in the past, present or future, though you wouldn't catch me complaining if you did anyway. Reading the following will NOT reduce hair loss, improve your sex drive or make your breasts larger, unless you're a guy and you're eating an entire bag of chips while reading this. You may already be a winner - at least, you are in my book, because you've taken the time to read this piece. Past performance is not indicative of future results. For entertainment purposes only.

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For no particular reason that I knew of, I was about 10 years old when I first received a sweepstakes letter from Publisher's Clearing House or some company of its ilk. I have no idea how I got on that mailing list at such a young age.

I didn't think that PCH was preying on me, though; they just wanted me to subscribe to some magazines, and as an added bonus, I could have been a millionaire before I was a teenager. It didn't work out that way; it would be another six years before I'd have a job to pay for a magazine subscription.

But the funny thing is that although I was 10, even *I* knew the catch. Which makes last year's controversy surrounding Publisher's Clearing House, its sweepstakes mailings, and the subsequent class action suit all the more mystifying to me.

Does anybody read the fine print anymore? Or have the delusions of instant riches completely blinded us to disclaimers?

My local newspaper has a feature called "Hotline," in which readers will call in or write in and ask the paper to answer a question or help solve a problem. For instance, a mail order company might not have delivered the goods to a local customer, and he wants his money back; Hotline will try to help him get a refund, or at the very least, give him a couple of addresses to write to, such as that state's consumer affairs bureau. It's kind of like having a Consumer Advocate in my friendly local media, except they're not, really.

In a recent edition, a reader said that a company had been sending him CDs that he didn't order but was still being billed for. To make a long story short, Hotline found that the reader in question had ordered a CD from that company some months ago, and that by doing so, he agreed to buy X number of CDs from that company.

In the end, Hotline lightly admonished the reader to be sure and read the fine print.

Duh.

I work for a self-storage company; the lease contracts there have a lot of "fine print," though it's not really fine print so much as it is a long list of rules and regulations. As a service to an incoming tenant, I go over the main sticking points of that list of regulations, such as the late fee structure, though I'm in no way required to do so. As long as the tenant receives a copy of the rules and regulations (and sign upon receipt of those regulations), then the collective posterior of myself and my company is covered in case any violations of those rules take place.

Still, you'd be surprised at how many people feign ignorance at these rules once they end up owing three or four hundred bucks. They "lost the paperwork" or "didn't have the rules explained" to them; it even gets to the point that some former tenants will sue us, usually in vain.

(On a completely different note regarding my job, you'd also be surprised at how many people call me "ma'am" on the phone.)

The entire "read the fine print" caveat should be hammered home even harder these days, what with the bevy of online services, contests and whatnot vying for your attention (and, potentially, your dollar). On the registration page, there's invariably that link to the rules and disclaimers and the terms of service, which probably has an even lower hit count than any one article I've posted on Themestream. (Then again, maybe my articles make for better bathroom reading than the Terms of Service, but I'm not sure that's exactly a compliment.)

I realize that if you're reading this piece, then I'm already preaching to the choir. Based on the comments I receive, both in public and in private, I'm blessed with a pretty intelligent readership, a small group of people who are fully cognizant of what they're getting into when they sign up for something, anything. You *know* that past performance isn't necessarily indicative of future performance, and that you may lose some or all of your investment. You can complete this sentence without blinking: "If it sounds too good to be true ..."

But for those coming late to the party, I implore you: please please please read the fine print. It'll save you a lot of heartache and headaches later.

Yeah, there are some people or companies out there that are just plain nasty, entities that can and will cause you serious financial harm even if you're the most cautious person in the world. There's still a portion of people out there that wholeheartedly believes that if you read it on the Internet, it must be true; likewise, there's an element out there that would looooooooove to separate you and your money because they think you might be one of those people.

Please don't let me down - please don't be one of those people.

Oh, and if you call me on the phone, please don't call me "ma'am." I'd rather you didn't read the fine print than deal with that.

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