Knipps
12-07-2006, 10:16 AM
yes, i know i messed up ferrari.
What do you do if 440 people show up, claiming to have the winning number in your raffle for one of three Ferrari F360s? You ask for a do-over, of course.
The Samsung Plaza department store in Pundang, south of Seoul, South Korea, found itself in an awkward position when customers beat the odds by a factor of more than 300 in the scratch-off lottery ticket promotion. Customers were told to pick six numbers out of 26 on the tickets, with the odds of picking the correct six calculated at one in 230,230. Instead of the expected three winners, though, 440 showed up in the store’s lobby to claim their prizes.
“Some suspect that they used a clever method to see through the silver coating,” reports the Korea Times. A clause limiting the giveaway to three Ferraris was omitted from the promotion catalog. “We occasionally make such mistakes when printing catalogues,” Lee Sang-hyun, public relations official of Samsung Corp., which operates the shopping mall chain, told the Times. “Sometimes we omit a zero in marking an item’s price, but that’s a mistake. This case is also a pure mistake, and the customers do not have any complaint about it.”
The F360s are valued at 280 million Korean won apiece, or about $305,000, meaning the payout would have cost Samsung 123 billion won, or $134 million.
There will be another draw to pick the three winners.
- By David LaChance
What do you do if 440 people show up, claiming to have the winning number in your raffle for one of three Ferrari F360s? You ask for a do-over, of course.
The Samsung Plaza department store in Pundang, south of Seoul, South Korea, found itself in an awkward position when customers beat the odds by a factor of more than 300 in the scratch-off lottery ticket promotion. Customers were told to pick six numbers out of 26 on the tickets, with the odds of picking the correct six calculated at one in 230,230. Instead of the expected three winners, though, 440 showed up in the store’s lobby to claim their prizes.
“Some suspect that they used a clever method to see through the silver coating,” reports the Korea Times. A clause limiting the giveaway to three Ferraris was omitted from the promotion catalog. “We occasionally make such mistakes when printing catalogues,” Lee Sang-hyun, public relations official of Samsung Corp., which operates the shopping mall chain, told the Times. “Sometimes we omit a zero in marking an item’s price, but that’s a mistake. This case is also a pure mistake, and the customers do not have any complaint about it.”
The F360s are valued at 280 million Korean won apiece, or about $305,000, meaning the payout would have cost Samsung 123 billion won, or $134 million.
There will be another draw to pick the three winners.
- By David LaChance