ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. – On Saturday morning, Spencer Boyd opened his mail and thought it was his lucky day.
Boyd received a scratch-off from the Nissan of St. Augustine car dealership and briefly thought his prayers had been answered when the ad said he had won a new car.
“So I scratched off (the ad) with a key,” Boyd said. “ … It ended up matching the description. And I reluctantly called, thinking this was probably too good to be true, but when I called and they verified my code, (they) said, ‘Congratulations. You're my grand-prize winner.’”
Boyd was told by a woman to come in the store to receive his prize. But when he arrived, it was a different story.
“My grandmother was with me and they had a different code on the door and it didn't match my activation code,” Boyd said. “And they offered me a few lottery tickets, which I didn't take because I was so upset.”
Boyd wasn’t alone in feeling deceived. His neighbors, coworkers and even other people who complained to the dealership all felt like they were all duped.
The dealership's general manager said the advertisement is legitimate -- and not a scam, adding that there have been three winners in the past six years.
All of the advertisements say ‘Winner’ but it comes down to the activation code.
Depending on the code, you could win a tablet, a car or a few lottery tickets, the dealership said. And that's what happened to Boyd.
The dealership has since acknowledged the misunderstanding and said it plans to look into advertising that is less misleading.
“That would be awesome,” Boyd said. “It's one thing to say, ‘Come in and see what you want,’ but when you tell someone that they are the grand-prize winner and you get their hopes up that they (won) a brand-new car, that's not even false advertisement. That's a (lie). So if they could just redo the way they do it, so it's not so misleading, I think that would be really awesome.”
And of course, it’s crucial to look at the fine print too, because on this ad, it stated, "Images are for illustration purposes only. It doesn’t reflect exact prize.”