Legal question

[travelfiend]

Hi everyone, just a general question. Every now and then I see a sweeps where it says No purchase required BUT you have to be a paying customer to enter. Always wonder how they get away with this. And yes, I checked entire rules, there is no amoe sweepstakes offered at all. Here is copy from the latest Sprint sweeps.


SPRINT SUMMER FUN GIVEAWAY OFFICIAL RULES
NO PURCHASE REQUIRED TO ENTER OR WIN

ELIGIBILITY: Sprint Summer Fun Giveaway (the “Sweepstakes”) is open only to legal residents of the fifty United States, the District of Columbia, U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico who are eighteen years of age or older and who are Sprint wireless customers in good standing with service starting on or before April 12, 2017.

Just seems to me to violate the laws regarding sweeps and not requiring people to make a purchase. Anyone know how they get away with this?

Thanks for any input, just curious!

 

[amyshulk]

I thought I remembered this:

Thread: Sweepstakes Legal Question
https://www.sweepsadvantage.com/forum/general-sweepstakes-talk/80479-sweepstakes-legal-question.html

travelfiend I did a search

Boot Camp #5: Customer-only sweepstakes | Thompson Coburn LLP - JDSupra


At least one court has held that sweepstakes with restricted eligibility requirements are legal, so long as the requirements are wholly unrelated to the payment of consideration. In other words, if the sweepstakes is limited to individuals who had responded to earlier mailings by purchasing products and the customers were not lead to believe that they must purchase products in order to enter the sweepstakes, there is no consideration. That court found that if the sweepstakes had only one eligibility requirement — that the entrant be a past customer — the customer-only sweepstakes did not hinge on the payment of consideration, and such a sweepstakes would not be illegal. But that is only one court in one state. This issue is still very unsettled.

Your example "Open to current DIRECTV® subscribers in good standing as of May 3, 2016" and the start date of May 4, 2016 means yes, it IS legal, because you could NOT subscribe/become a customer & be eligible after the sweeps started