Your (too!) have won a cruise

Small, a Fredericton police officer, had visited Digby during Scallop Days and had filled out a ballot that entered his name in a draw for a cruise.

“Win a Cruise” was plastered all over the booth,” he recalls.

The call came to Small, and many others, as a result of their contest entries at that waterfront booth.

Small says he expressed his discomfort with giving out his credit card number to the caller, and that person immediately gave him an 800 number that he could call to check the authenticity of the offer.

“I figured anybody could get an 800 number, but thought I would call it anyway,” he says. When Small called the number, he was told that the contest was legitimate.

Small then did an internet search of the 800 number and it popped up under a website named ‘Schemes, scams and frauds.’

He also called the promotions department of Carnival Cruises, since he understood they were the cruiseline involved and was told that the booth set up at Digby Scallop Days did not belong to them. “You didn’t give them your credit card number, did you?” the woman at Carnival Cruise Lines asked him.

Small says he returned to the ‘schemes, scams and frauds,’ website and read about a couple who had sent along their $598. They did get the trip—but it wound up costing much more, he says. They had to pay their air-fare. They had to sit through a time-share presenation. And then there were the taxes on the hotel room. The 14 day vacation consisted of only 8 days cruising and the balance of the time was at a hotel.. Their ‘free’ vacation wound up costing $2500.

RCMP officer Dawn Thomas, coordinator of the seniors safety program, said the situation is being investigated.

“If an offer seems to good to be true, then it is,” says Thomas. “Never ever give your credit card information over the phone unless you are the one who has made the call and know without a doubt who you are giving it to."