Sweepstakes Pros Site Systems Impersonated Turkish Airlines ,Perhaps Duped Turkish Airlines Themselves, And Asked For W-9 And Other Tax Documents San Jose, California
This concern originated from the following website: http://www.turkishairlinessweepstakes.com/
It offers a sweepstakes for enrolled college students to enter for a chance to win free tickets through Turkish Airlines.
After entry, I received an e-mail from 'fulfillment@sitesystems.com' stating that I had won. I was skeptical because the e-mail asked for a W-9 form and other personal information. Amazingly, however, the official Turkish Airlines Facebook and Twitter pages advertised this sweepstakes. I began to think the sweepstakes was real, but I was not sure if the e-mail itself was a fake (impersonating the actual sweepstakes company).
The turkishairlinessweepstakes.com "Official Rules" name "SweepstakesPros" as the overseeing company (running the sweepstakes). SweepstakesPros has an identical website with Site Systems and Promotion Trust, which all share a physical address. (Also confer: sweepstakespros.com; sitesystems.com; promotrust.com)
The e-mail I received included the same phone number that actually corresponds to the SweepstakesPros website. So I deduced the following: (1) Turkish Airlines' official pages point to "turkishairlinessweepstakes.com"; (2) This officially-endorsed website says that the sweepstakes is run by SweepstakesPros; (3) The official number (from the SweepstakesPros website) is the same one I received in the e-mail, so theoretically I was directed to contact the same people who Turkish Airlines endorsed.
I called SweepstakesPros and everything was re-iterated to me. I then sought to confer with Turkish Airlines themselves, to make sure that everything was alright. To my astonishment, no one I have spoken to in Turkish Airlines has any knowledge about this sweepstakes! I have contacted Turkish Airlines in all of their (four) U.S. Sales offices, on their website, and through the official Facebook page.
Naturally, when I received a response from the Turkish Airlines official Facebook page, the representative said that he/she had checked with the appropriate persons, and that no one at Turkish Airlines knew of this sweepstakes. This, of course, begged the question, why was the official page sending out links to this (probably fake) sweepstakes? I have yet to receive a response, I am assuming that whomever is in charge of Turkish Airlines Facebook simply saw the sweepstakes webpage (turkishairlinessweepstakes.com) and assumed it was legitimate and then advertised it.
In summation: (1) Turkish Airlines official social media sources are endorsing the above sweepstakes; (2) when I contact the affiliated sweepstakes company they ask for personal financial information; (3) When I then contact Turkish Airlines directly, no one knows anything at all about this sweepstakes.
2 Updates & Rebuttals
mickeydb
ny,New York,
I Also Won... but they are giving me problems
#3Consumer Comment
Mon, January 06, 2014
I also won the student sweepstakes, however they are jerking me around. No one gets back to me or answers my calls. Is this happening to you?
Consumer05
Durham,North Carolina,
Update: This Is A Legitimate Sweepstakes
#3Author of original report
Sat, April 06, 2013
I am updating this report to verify that this is *NOT* a scam.
While I struggled initially to obtain confirmatory information from Turkish Airlines, eventually they confirmed that this is in fact a real sweepstakes!
I would remove this report if I could, because I do not want to unfairly harm these companies' reputations, this is in fact a very generous promotion.
The company SweepstakesPros has been officially selected (by Turkish Airlines) to conduct the sweepstakes and they have been very helpful.
Again, none of the claims in my initial report were warranted, all claims of the sweepstakes are valid. The Turkish Airlines folks were helpful when I got ahold of the right representatives. SweepstakesPros was very helpful and patient throughout the process.
I apologize to Turkish Airlines and SweepstakesPros for spreading the above the information before I had complete knowledge.