Antelope Valley Chevrolet - Lou Gonzales, Owner Deceptive advertising using a BAIT & SWITCH scam with a game ensuring CASH winners Lancaster California

On 4-16-16 My son and I received an AD/Flyer with a game card on it, my son opened the tabs on the card and it showed 3 silver cars in a row from left to right.  After reading the flyer several times he asked me to read it, I also read it several times and it showed that we had WON $5000 CASH. Neither one of us is gullable, we've both been in high end retail myself for 15+ years, my son for 10+ years.  According to the disclaimers and the printed rules of the games using their (-) and (--) codes, we had won the cash and a chance to play another game at the dealership using the confirmation code on the flyer.

So we pack up my disabled grand daughter at 7pm on a Saturday night to go to Antelope Valley Chevrolet, only because when I called the phone number on the flyer and entered my confirmation code (as per their instructions) the recording asked me what day I wanted to come in and after I pushed the button, it hung up on me.  We tried to call the # again, you guessed it, it wouldn't allow us to enter anything and hung up on us again. 

We get to the dealership, and before I could put my vehicle in park, the sales guy "Lee" was standing in front of us. We started talking and I asked him about the game, he side stepped every inquiry I made about the game.  Once inside he started gathering my info, When I laid the game card on the table and asked about the $5000 I had won he would't talk about it, finally he took my card into the finance/manager room and acted the part, he  threw my game piece into a box filled with flyers.

When he came back my son began questioning him about the prize that our card showed we had won. Lee explained that we had only won a "CHANCE" to see "IF" we had won by matching our confirmation # to the GAME BOARD.  The game board consisted of a small poster board with 3 (THREE) munbers on it.  How the Attorney General office has approved this game,  how they couldn't do it with out it and that if it was ok with the Attorney General's office we should be ok with it too. BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.  

I got up and walked over to the finance/manager's room and asked for my game card back and began asking the about the winning card. They scooted me out of their office and gave me a lottery ticket and one of their scatcher game pieces and avoiding giving me a straight answer all the way out of the showroom.

After my son was told by Lee that we hadn't won,  we were told enough info to see that this was a "BAIT & SWITCH" scam using game cards.  I wasn't leaving yet, while I sat in my car trying to cool off, I was reading the flyer and a different salesman walked up and I talked to him about the winning card and the disclaimers.  He told me that, "90% of the game pieces they send out are "WINNERS" that is how they able to get away with this."  I didn't get his name, I was still a little upset over everthing.

On our drive home my son brought up this website, and there it was the EXACT same game/scam as the one in Texas, KING OF CARS sell-off event.   

It appears that this scam is finding it's way across the south western U.S. Maybe they are comin to your town next.  Keep your eyes open and report them to every agency you can think of.