Posted on 07/14/2005 4:10:52 AM PDT by Cowman
Woman Sues Over Radio Station's Toy Hummer April Fools' Prank
Last Updated: 07-13-05 at 2:58PM
LOS ANGELES (AP) - A listener is suing a radio station she said promised her a new Hummer H2 and instead gave her a remote-controlled model as an April Fools' Day prank.
Shannon Castillo, 25, sued Taft radio station KBDS "The Play" 103.9 after it presented her the toy car for winning a weeklong "contest" in which listeners were supposed to track the number of miles two H2s traveled around town. DJs at the station gave regular updates on the vehicles' supposed travels.
She said she hired a baby sitter for her two children so she could arrive at the station at 6 a.m. on the day of the giveaway, April 1. After she waited for two hours, she said, a DJ pulled up in the back of a truck and handed her and another listener remote-controlled toy cars.
"They put us on the radio all week long, just portraying how they couldn't believe that we believed they were actually giving away real cars," said Castillo, a Bakersfield housewife. "I just couldn't believe that they would actually humiliate someone like that."
The station did not return a call for comment Wednesday.
A series of photos on the station's Web site shows Castillo being presented the toy. In the last photo in the series, she signals her displeasure with an obscene gesture.
"On April 1st (Fool's) we ran a contest...'Win A Hummer'. Do you know how many people actually participated thinkin' we were gonna give away an actual hummer? Not on this day!!!" the Web site says.
Castillo's lawyer, Scott Perlman, said the station's misrepresentation of the prizes being offered violated state law and Federal Communications Commission regulations. The lawsuit, filed June 21, seeks $60,000, about the cost of a real H2.
"Any time you conduct a contest you have to be brutally honest about how you're conducting the contest and what you're giving away," Perlman said.
He said the station indicated the H2 had 22-inch rims, suggesting the vehicle itself was full-sized.
The case recalls one from 2002 in which a Florida Hooters restaurant waitress sued over a contest in which she thought she won a Toyota for selling the most beer to customers but was presented a toy Yoda doll, one of the "Star Wars" characters. The restaurant said the contest was an April Fools' joke. The waitress received an undisclosed settlement.
Perlman said he believed the restaurant in that case had actually been more honest than the radio station.
"A play on words like that you can get away with," he said.
Depends on the joke. Public humiliation along with bait-and-switch is not a joke IMHO.
Boo-hoo, you hurt my feelings. Give me a break and grow up. You sound like all the other idiots out there who are "offended" at everything.
Really? You have no idea what does or does not offend me. Even calling me an idiot on this thread does not offend me.
So, if someone tricks your granny into getting her drive way resurfaced with some black water color, and it's April Fool's Day, she deserves it?
See, I don't see the difference. A con is a con, whether one is being conned out of some bucks, or, one is being conned out of their time. Either way, the con man is trying to enrich himself at someone else's expense...
Says to me they're even smarter! Let this woman pay for the lawyer and have her name in the paper and then once she wins, call the station's general manager: "Yeah, I'm about to meet with a lawyer. Or did you want to deliver my H2 now?" :)
TS
(hey, no snickers from any of you!)
LOL! But you can count on it that she will have a lawyer on the doorstep the next day should this lawsuit win.
April Fools or not, if the station led her to believe they were giving away a real car, she is owed a real car.
Practical jokes are for you and me, not radio station contests.
"22-inch wheels? Sounds like a dimension to me."
- Haven't you ever built a model? The Hummer in question most certainly could have had 20" wheels...just 1:12 or 1:16 scale. Not disclosing the scale of the vehicle is the whole purpose and punch line of the joke.
you would take it as a news bulletin?
No. However, if I were running a contest on a radio that promised something at the end that involved such and I did not honor it, you better believe a lawsuit would be in the offing.
Agreed.
I (A) have a plenty-lively sense of humor, and (B) have never thought that deceiving people to humiliate them -- particuarly publicly -- is funny.
Dan
"Even calling me an idiot on this thread does not offend me."
- I didn't call you an idiot, I suggested that you sound like one of the multitude which I described.
"Depends on the joke. Public humiliation along with bait-and-switch is not a joke IMHO."
- Public Humiliation? Bait & Switch? It was April fools and there was no bait-n-switch. She still got her Hummer, just a wee bit smaller than she anticipated. lol
bump
Your point?
The radio station owes her a car.
Likely not, but if I stand to gain or lose $60,000 based on what you say, you'd better choose your words very precisely.
Just a wee bit smaller than they let on.
Because it's fraud, legally?
This is a sue-happy country, badly in need of tort reform.
But in this case, I'd say she was dead right. There was no "fine print" for her to read (or not read) whereby the radio station has a back-door way out.
If they represented this as a contest to win a Hummer, a Hummer she should get. Unless the station can show that there were enough statements made alluding to the fact that it was a toy - even indirectly - she had every right to assume she was contesting for the real thing. Add to this the fact that radio stations give away large prizes on a somewhat regular basis, you would have no reason to believe this wasn't a real contest.
Pay up, boys.
Because they BROKE THE LAW. If you announce the prize in a contest, then that has to BE the prize. They'll be buying her a Hummer, all right.
Cowman,
Yeah, folks outta lighten up in general. But to be fair it's not even an original bit.
This is about the 344th time something like this has been done by DJs in the last 10 years.
If an employer hired you for $100.00 per hour on April 1, would you be angry when you got your pay check and found out it was an April fools joke, you were only being paid $10.00 per hour. Explained by well it was an april fools joke the secretary and I played.
I think I'd demand my $100.00 per hour.
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