Stingl: Customer riled by car dealer's scratch-off promotion complains to state of Wisconsin

You know what feels good? When your numbers on a lottery scratch-off ticket match the winning numbers. It means you've got money coming.

That's what Edward Marquard assumed when he scratched off a car dealership promotion that looked like a state lottery ticket and even sounds like one — Super Jackpot.

Bam! He matched all six in order — ace of clubs, king of clubs, four of hearts, nine of spades, ace of diamonds, jack of diamonds.

Following the instructions on the ticket, which had arrived in the mail, he called a phone number, entered a confirmation code and scheduled a visit to Griffin Chevrolet to, he thought, collect a $3,500 prize.

I've always been leery of things that sound too good to be true. I receive a mailing like this and I toss it out. So did many of Marquard's neighbors at the Milwaukee northwest side apartment building where he lives.

"I see other people got them and just kind of threw them on the floor," he said.

Thinking maybe the universe was smiling at him, Marquard took his ticket to Griffin, 11100 W. Metro Auto Mall, also on the northwest side.

"They looked at it but just never would talk about it again, whether I won anything or whether there was some other special arrangement that I had to meet," the 71-year-old factory worker told me.

They tried to sell Marquard a vehicle, which of course is what happens when people walk through the doors of car dealers. He even took a test drive, thinking it might be nice to replace his 13-year-old Mercury Grand Marquis with 160,000 miles on it.

But he left empty-handed, and then he filed a complaint against Griffin Chevrolet with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. Bottom line: "I think I won $3,500 cash," he wrote.

His visit to Griffin was in late January. In a letter dated Feb. 9, the state told Marquard it was looking into it. By April, when nothing seemed to be happening on his case, he contacted the Journal Sentinel. 

Let me say at this point that I don't think Griffin did anything too terrible. Sneaky, perhaps, but they're in a competitive business. Griffin even cleared the scratch-off promotion with the very same consumer protection office and tweaked the wording and font size to keep it legal.

The ticket says 70,000 of these things were mailed out, and just one lucky person gets $25,000 cash, one gets $3,500 and one gets a big TV. That leaves 69,997 let's call them winners who get a smartwatch.

News flash: Everybody who bothered to scratch off the numbers got a perfect match. Otherwise, they would have no reason to visit the dealership.

"Unfortunately, you do get a person here or there that sometimes will look at it and they don't read it thoroughly and they don't understand the whole process," said Gary Greenwood, corporate director of sales for Griffin Auto Group, which runs a few stores in the area. An outside firm helped run the direct mail contest. 

He estimated that only 1% to 2% of those receiving the mailings come in to check the prize board, which is placed in the middle of the showroom. Marquard says he never saw it. 

"You walk out and you're done," Greenwood said. "If you want to stay around and talk about purchasing an automobile, that's totally up to them. This is what we're here for is to sell cars."

No one else complained, he said, adding he was sorry that Marquard didn't feel he was treated fairly. As it turned out, no one claimed the three big prizes.

Marquard's complaint is still open and the response from the dealership is being evaluated, said Jerad Albracht, spokesman for Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. Wisconsin law regulates unsolicited prize notices like this one, and people do sometimes complain about them.

At least Marquard got a consolation prize wristwatch out of the deal, right? Actually, he says, they never gave him one.

Contact Jim Stingl at (414) 224-2017 or jstingl@jrn.com. Connect with my public page at Facebook.com/Journalist.Jim.Stingl