September 13, 2003

The following is the September entry on the eSLASHculture Internet Action Line by Russ Pendleman.

Free Las Vegas Trip Scam

    Recently several eSLASHculture readers have reported a new Internet-based scam.  The intended victim receives an e-mail informing him that he has won an all expenses paid Las Vegas vacation featuring two days and two nights at a luxury casino resort.

Too Good To Be True

    If there is one thing I have learned in my years of studying consumer fraud it is that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.  Typically the "winner" in these scams will have to pay a "delivery fee" for his ticket of up to $89.  On arrival, the victim is greeted by members of a high pressure real estate sales team and forced to spend ten to twelve hours touring time-share condos each day.  Upon the conclusion of each day's tours, the "winner" is then checked in to a shabby motor court casino far from downtown Las Vegas and obliged to pay a portage fee of $39 per night as well as room taxes of up to $32 per night.  At the end of the trip, the lucky "winner" is often up to $250 poorer.  It is far from the luxury vacation promised.  A recent victim "Kevin" had an unusual and troubling experience with this new scam.

A Hipster's Prank

    Kevin, a guitarist in an alternative rock band in Austin, Texas prided himself on his hip, iconoclastic sense of humor.  After receiving the same annoying Las Vegas Vacation e-mail every day for two weeks, Kevin decided to pull a prank on the internet hucksters himself.  Kevin completed the required "winners verification form" and signed the six page waiver under the name of his beloved black Labrador retriever, Jimmy Page.  Despite the fictional winner's name, within three days a Federal Express package containing a ticket to Las Vegas arrived courtesy of Sweepstakes Properties Inc. for "Mister Jimmy Page."  Undaunted, Kevin took his dog to the airport, ticket clipped to his collar, and deposited him at the gate at Austin International Airport.  Much to Kevin's amazement, Southwestern Airlines boarded his dog, and the airplane departed to Las Vegas as scheduled, leaving Austin on a rainy Friday afternoon.

A Joke Gone Terribly Wrong

    It was with a mixture of curiosity and relief that Kevin greeted the return flight from Las Vegas the following Sunday afternoon.  When Jimmy Page loped off the plane as scheduled, Kevin immediately sensed there was something wrong.  His dog looked tired and disoriented, and as he staggered about on his leash, it was clear that Jimmy Page had been drinking.  Clipped to his collar was a thick manila envelope.  A fellow passenger on the same flight stopped and introduced himself to Kevin.  "Ricky," a hung-over, overweight insurance claims adjuster in a garish Hawaiian shirt, explained that he was also a "winner" and had been on the same junket as Jimmy Page.  As he waited for his luggage, he told a disturbing story of their shared weekend in the desert.  Ricky arrived in Las Vegas on Friday and spotted a limo driver with a sign that had his name and "Jimmy Page" written on it.  The rest of the day was spent in a marathon session of touring cheap, prefab condos and timeshares.  After being dropped off at a seedy motel, The Bauxite Nugget, Ricky helped Jimmy Page redeem his meal voucher.  What began as a casual hand or two of blackjack after dinner turned into an all night marathon gambling session.

    "Jimmy Page was on a huge roll," Ricky explained.  "At one point he had taken the twenty bucks in chips I had given him as a joke and had built it up to over eight thousand dollars.  It was unbelievable! Everything he played he won.  He even won at roulette.  No one wins at roulette!  Well, we didn't crash until five in the morning.  To be honest with all the comped drinks and stuff, we were both pretty wasted.  We had adjoining rooms, and the next day when we got up we blew off the bullshit real estate tour and decided to take our winnings and hit the Strip.  Jimmy wanted to do the Hard Rock, and he just kept winning, but by midnight it got bad and he had lost it all betting on college basketball.  My luck wasn't much better, and we had to walk back to the Nugget.  I was down to my last five bucks and at the bar I got lucky on a Kino card and won sixty bucks.  Of course, we pissed it away immediately on a bottle of Everclear. and these cool tattoos."

    Kevin was shocked to see a pair of dice and a revolver tattooed on Jimmy Page's left shank.  Before he could give this Ricky a piece of his mind, the drunken clerk hopped a cab and was gone.  Kevin went home with his badly hung-over Labrador and a bill for over three hundred and fifty dollars from Sweepstakes Properties Inc. including a one hundred dollar fee for missing the final day of the mandatory real estate tour.

A Dog With A Problem

    After a few weeks of silence and hard feelings between man and dog, things finally seemed to return to normal.  Kevin had paid off the fees from his ill-advised Las Vegas prank, but it was clear that Jimmy Page was not himself.  Kevin noticed his dog at first would be gone from the yard several nights a week.  When getting in late from gigs, Kevin would often scour the neighborhood for his dog without finding him.  Sometimes it would be a full day or two before the normally friendly, energetic dog would reappear sullen, bleary-eyed, and clearly hung-over.  It wasn't until two months later when a young Latino man knocked on Kevin's door that the truth came out.  The young man very politely insisted that Kevin owed three thousand dollars in gambling debts accrued by Jimmy Page in an unlicensed basement casino across town.  When shown the I.O.U.s, Kevin quickly recognized Jimmy Page's paw print.  Shock then anger washed over him as he realized that his beloved dog had become a helpless compulsive gambler.  A visit with a family lawyer confirmed that the documents were valid and binding.  Even worse, in Texas dogs are not legally allowed to file for bankruptcy thus Kevin was left responsible for the entire debt.  In the ensuing weeks, Kevin negotiated a twelve month payment plan.  In the meantime, Jimmy Page grew more sullen and antagonistic, bitter about now having to spend his days on a lease chained to a fence.  Though it appeared that finally they had the problem under control, it was with surprise  and disgust that Kevin one night at three in the morning found Jimmy Page logged onto their iMac smoking a joint and rolling up over five  hundred dollars in losses gambling at an on-line casino based in the Bahamas.

Clean and Sober

    Finally, Kevin realized that Jimmy Page's problem was too serious for them to handle alone.  It was with a mixture of both hope and fear that Kevin brought Jimmy Page to the New Horizon's Kennel and Acute Treatment Center.  Like so many others, Kevin had never before realized that compulsive gambling in pets accounts for over thirty million dollars in debt each year in the United States alone.  After receiving twelve weeks of treatment for gambling addiction, alcoholism, substance abuse, as well as undergoing intensive psychological counseling for long repressed sire and whelp issues, Jimmy Page finally came home clean and sober.  "I still curse the day I decided to be a smart ass and put my dog on a plane to Vegas," Kevin says now.  "But I realize that even the best dog in the world can be made powerless before this crushing addiction."

New Horizons

    Kevin and Jimmy Page are now frequent speakers on the Pets With Problems circuit and their best seller, Sit! Roll Over!, Fold 'Em:  A Dog's Guide To Quitting Gambling, remains an inspiration to millions.  Jimmy Page is also now on the Board of Directors of Wet Pines Recovery Center, a bi-partisan treatment center serving both cats and dogs.  Look for them on "Oprah!"  this week.