LOOKING FOR MR. FEDEX

By John Clark

I was nine when the magic began. SusaBelle’s on the Union common had a drawing, and I won a big green telephone truck. I can still see it forty-eight years later. That win was the beginning of an adventure-filled hobby that has brought me more surprises and excitement than I ever imagined.

I’m now a veteran sweepstaker. Since winning that truck, I have won more than 2,000 prizes; some luxurious, many mundane, and a few that would easily qualify as bizarre. While this might seem like a lot of wins, I know other sweepers around the country whose successes dwarf mine.

When I ask most people what constitutes a sweepstakes, I generally get one of two responses. They either mention the lottery or Publishers Clearinghouse. I don’t bother with either. There are a lot better ones out there, and they don’t cost anything more than a little effort and a stamp. With the advent of the Internet, I can often forgo the stamp.

Like any other hobby, sweepstaking has its own lore and language. Sweepers have mantras, and one you hear often is “remember the three Ps: patience, persistence, and postage.” We also have our holy grail. The 4 Cs: car, cash, cruise, and a computer. We talk about dry-spell periods when no matter how hard you try or how often you enter, nothing comes in return. Dry spells are what really separate the serious players from the wannabes. I’ve come close to giving up several times after a two or three month span that brought nothing more than a T-shirt. Each time, I have hung in there, and the postal service or UPS brought something good to my door soon after.

There are three aspects to successful sweepstaking. First, you need to know how to find sweeps that are worth entering. It used to be easy to find them on coupon boards at the grocery store or in shopping malls. Grocery and convenience stores still feature in-store promotions most of the time. The coupon inserts from the weekend newspapers are another good resource. However, no self-respecting sweeper does without a newsletter, and I know several Maine sweepers who get between three and six different ones. I get two, Sweepsheet and Sweeping America. Both are published weekly and run between ten and twelve pages. Each costs about $50 per year. I chuckle when I hear some poor soul complaining about the cost. One good win easily pays for a subscription. I covered the cost of my Sweeping America subscription for the next ten years with just one win.

If you want to be a sweeper on a shoestring, the Internet is ripe with sweepstakes, but you need to be careful when seeking them. There are many sites that are less than honest, but major companies such as Kellogg’s and Kraft are usually running at least one sweepstakes on their websites at any given time. If you want to get started, there is a terrific website that lists all current instant win games at http://myinstantwin.com/other.html.

Aside from a sweepstakes newsletter, one of the best assets that a newcomer to the hobby can have is membership in a sweepstakes club. Our Maine Sweepers group has a national reputation for two things— winning and getting along with each other. We have been meeting monthly for more than ten years. We currently meet on the second Saturday of each month, where we share war stories, official entry forms, strategy, free postcards, lots of laughter, and have our own drawings.

In 1996, we started a “brag board” that listed everything we won with a value of more than $100. The first year, we won something like $40,000. That total quickly rose. When we added up all the brag boards at our December 2003 meeting, the total for the twenty or so active members came to $495,000. That caused us to set a group goal for the first time—win $150,000 in 2004. When the dust settled in December, we had won $172,000.

We also have a Yahoo newsgroup that allows us to share wins and new sweepstakes. That list has almost one hundred members and lets everyone feel more connected and know who might be interested in a particular sweepstakes. We have the NASCAR group, the Sox or Pats tickets contingent, and everyone is eager to win a new car (although we have won at least six already). Most members have a specific trip location they want to visit courtesy of a sweepstakes win.

Perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of sweeping is the amazing things that happen in the process of winning. At least twelve years ago, Budweiser had an instant win tied to the Summer Olympics, and game pieces appeared in People and Sports Illustrated. I took the game piece from my issue of SI and went to the local convenience store where I nearly had a heart attack as it matched the silver symbol on the decoder (good for a jet ski or $4,000). This was on a Friday. The next day, I drove from Maine to a New Hampshire Sweeps meeting in Derry. When the meeting was over, I drove to the new Comp USA store off I 495 to enter an in-store drawing. After entering, I noticed a Bradlees a half mile away and decided to stop in because, at that time, their stores were having a lot of in-store promotions. I didn't find any, but while there I got curious and started leafing through issues of People magazine to look at the Budweiser game pieces. I nearly had heart attack #2 when I found another silver medal match; ditto for the next three issues.

Needless to say, I bought all four issues and drove back to Maine thinking I was either the luckiest guy in the state or someone had screwed-up big time. I gave the other game pieces to my mother, my father-in-law, and two friends with an agreement that if they won, I’d get $500 free and clear. A week after we mailed in our game pieces, we received certified letters apologizing because the company who printed the game pieces had printed several thousand extra silver medal winners. As a way of making things right, Anheuser-Busch refunded our postage and set up a special pool of one hundred extra jet skis in a drawing only open to those who had sent in the errant game pieces. Needless to say we were all on pins and needles right after the announced date of the drawing. I won, Mom won, and my best friend won. A year later, my father-in-law received a check for $1,700 in a settlement of a class action suit filed by a non-winner. Only in sweeping would such an adventure happen.

My hobby has taken us to Hollywood, Disney World, and Washington, D.C. It has put a car in the driveway, a laptop in my daughter’s dorm room, shirts signed by Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana, and, most recently, a $5,000 shopping spree on eBay. I’ve also won huge red inflatable lips and seventeen bottles of perfume that were so awful I couldn’t even give them away. What’s next? I don’t know, ask me after today’s mail arrives.  

 

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