Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Is a Free Gift Card Really Free?

How gullible our kids with special needs are! There are two things I tell Marisa over and over.

"If it's too good to be true, it's not true."

"Nothing in life is free."

I've told her each time she was fooled in to believing some advertisement for something free or something that will work like a miracle. Marisa finds it's much more fun to believe what she hears or reads. That seems like a fun idea till the reality hits home.

Usually when I answer the phone, and it's someone calling for Marisa with some promise to make her a star, tell her she won a vacation or offer something "free" I usually just send them on their way and hang up. Something got me to do otherwise the other day. Maybe it's because I'm tired of having the phone ring with some scam artist calling for Marisa, or maybe it's just that I would like to believe something exciting and fun can actually happen, and on occasion it actually has happened for her in the past. I do remember Marisa winning a $100 gift card to one of her favorite stores, and receiving very nice prizes for contests entered every so often. So when the phone rang, and the caller asked for Marisa, this time I wanted to believe that maybe there still was some goodness in the world, and maybe Marisa was actually going to be a winner once more! So this time when the caller asked for Marisa, I answered, "Yes, that's me!"

I was ready to play this out for good or bad. If it was an innocent contest and she was a winner that would be fine, but if this was a scam, I wanted to be able to teach Marisa something about tricks to fool consumers into purchases they don't need. I wanted her to learn how to become more aware, able to question and be less gullible.

I learned that Marisa had contacted this provider through an advertisement probably on one of the social networks or in a magazine.

The offer was for a $10 gift card to a store in our region.

"What's the catch?" I asked.

"Oh ... there's no catch! I just need to ask some information about you."

I was already getting nervous about this. "Exactly what do you want to know?" I asked.

"I need to know what kind of magazines you like."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because you are going to get 5 free subscriptions to the magazines of your choice!"

"WOW! How exciting ... but what's the catch?"

"There's no catch. You will get five magazines completely FREE! All you have to do is pay $3.99 each week for a period of time."

"And you call that free?" I asked.

"Well considering the magazines could be up to $29 for a yearly subscription and you're getting a $10 gift card as well, it's a pretty good deal!" he said.

"I don't think so" I answered.  "I didn't plan on ordering 5 magazines and I don't need a $10 gift card either, so take my name off your list and forget the whole thing."

"I gotcha!" was the reply, as he hung up.

Then I knew that Marisa would never be able to realize the extent of this scam. She would have been fooled in to spending money for something she didn't need just so she could get a $10 gift card.

I knew we needed to have a serious conversation when she got home.

Would she understand?

Later that day we did have a talk about the free gift card, and once again I reminded her that nothing is free.

Did she finally get the meaning?

Later that week, Marisa asked if we could go to the mall.

"What are we going for?" I asked.

"Oh, I have coupons for some of my favorite stores!"

"Do you need anything right now?" I asked. "There will always be other coupons."

Marisa opened her bag, took out the coupons, checked the dates and threw them away. "Maybe, I'll save my money and wait till there's another coupon," she announced with a sigh of satisfaction in her voice.

It wasn't a scam she was rejecting, but it certainly was a step in the right direction!