RIVER CITY JOURNAL: IT'S OFFICIAL: YOU ARE A GUARANTEED WINNER (ALMOST)

Magazine sweepstakes aren't illegal, but most businesses would go kaput using those tactics on their customers.

A few years ago I made a huge mistake. For purposes of research on a series of news stories, I entered one of those national sweepstakes contests that involves buying magazines.

I took the contest seriously. Mainly I wanted to see how many hoops there were. And I wanted to see if someone who bought a magazine subscription fared better than a freeloader.

If you're interested, it doesn't matter. Anyone who doesn't buy a subscription becomes a target for harder-hitting sales pitches. Anyone who buys a subscription is regarded as an easy mark likely to spend even more money for the right inducement.

Either way, you get lots of junk mail.

In that experiment, both Joe Sullivan and J. Sullivan of the same address became one of the super-duper finalists almost guaranteed to win a gazillion dollars or a new Corvette (go ahead and pick the color now, the glitzy brochure said). Joe Sullivan bought a subscription. J. Sullivan didn't.

You know what else? My wife and my younger son, whose names also were lent to the experiment, also were pretty sure guaranteed to win the big prize.

The sweepstakes approach must work. Why else would respectable magazines use this marketing technique? I can remember a time when sweepstakes were frowned upon, just like the rest of the world of gambling and sure-fire sin. Nowadays, of course, gambling isn't a sin. It's a kind of benevolent taxation run by the state for noble purposes, like educating your children and caring for the poor and sick. Who could possible sneer at a slot machine under those circumstances?

So it is with magazine sweepstakes, which use more misleading -- and cleverly worded -- come-ons in those mailings than any snake-oil salesman ever dreamed of.

Which brings me to this week. In two days I received notices that I was ABSOLUTELY GUARANTEED to win $11 million in not one, not two, but three separate sweepstakes, including the one with Ed McMahon and Dick Clark. Oh. Did I mention I was absolutely guaranteed to win all that moola IF my prize number matched the computer-selected prize-winning number?

Since I haven't entered any sweepstakes, I wonder how three of those outfits picked me to be one of their guaranteed (almost) winners? A clue: One of the packages came to Joe Sullivan, and the other two came to J. Sullivan. Sound familiar?

A year or so ago my wife gave me a subscription to New Yorker magazine for my birthday. When she got the bill, she put it in my birthday card and wrote a pet name she calls me on the bill. Then she remembered she needed to send in the payment.

Sure enough. Soon the magazine started arriving each week addressed to the pet name. And soon after that, someone with my pet name started becoming a finalist in dozens of sweepstakes.

No, I'm not saying the sweepstakes are crooked or dishonest. I will say I think they purposely try to deceive people in a way that is heavily regulated in almost every other industry that uses mailed solicitations to beg for other people's money.

You know what I wish? I wish the magazines I subscribe to would keep their $11 gazillion dollars and give me a break on the subscription rate. All I ever wanted was something decent to read. I wouldn't know what to do with a gazillion dollars.

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.