She got her prize, but you might not

Cathy Godwin of Knightdale regularly enters sweepstakes. And she's apparently very lucky. She's won patio furniture, a savings bond and gift cards.

In January, Godwin was informed by letter that she'd won a "digi" prize package with a laptop, a jump drive, a "smart" pen and a nice bag to carry it all.

She filled out the required affidavit, which asked for her name, address and Social Security number, and sent it in. By March she had not received it.

She called the promotions company that sent her the letter, and she was assured the package was coming soon.

It didn't. So she contacted Troubleshooter for help.

On Tuesday, I got on the horn with the promotions company, Strobe Promotions of Hicksville, N.Y.

Robert Kaplan, the owner, was very nice and even apologized that Godwin had not received her prize yet (how refreshing!). But he said his company was just hired to promote this contest for iChapters.com, which sells discounted textbooks and has a new company name, Cengagebrain.com.

A marketing company called Swirl out of San Francisco was in charge of the actual prize, Kaplan told me.

"We're not looking to pass the buck," he said. "I apologize for any inconvenience to her, and we've been doing our best to get the prize to her." He said Strobe has called Swirl several times to get the prize shipped to Godwin, Kaplan said.

He put me in touch with Jennifer Conway, a Swirl senior account manager.

Conway said Tuesday that the contest was directed at college students, who were asked to send in a video of how they live a "digi" life. Conway said a sweepstakes Web site must have picked it up because Godwin is not a college student. But out of the 1,000 people who entered the contest, she was one of five winners, Conway said.

It's now a matter of getting the packages together, Conway said. They've had to collect all the prizes, some of which were donated by partners, she said.

Conway told me the prize should be in the mail to Godwin within the next few weeks.

On Wednesday, Godwin said she received ane-mail message from Cory O'Brien, an account manager for iChapters.com, who told her the computer would get to her by Friday.

She received it Thursday at 5 p.m.

That made my week. Troubleshooter loves getting results.

But this did get me thinking about sweepstakes and the amount of personal information one has to give to get the prize. How are you to know if a sweepstakes is legitimate?

Are sweepstakes legit?

Godwin subscribes to a sweepstakes newsletter and says she's never had a problem with identity theft, but I called Attorney General Roy Cooper to ask for advice.

Cooper says there are legitimate sweepstakes, but "We generally discourage people from entering them because of the problems that can result."

Even if they are legitimate, sweepstakes winners such as Godwin are required to provide significant amounts of personal information to collect the prize.

"Some use it for marketing purposes," Cooper said.

But then there are many sweepstakes scams, where people are told - either by phone or mail - that they've won money.

The 'send money' scam

Sometimes, the scammers ask for your bank account number so they can deposit the money. Others send you a check to cash, but then tell you to send them money for the taxes.

"People will deposit the check into their account, wire the money and then a number of days later, they find out the check is dishonored," Cooper said.

And it happens more than you'd think, the attorney general said. When he visits the bank to do his personal checking, tellers hand him the fake checks they've collected, stopping victims from cashing them, he said.

"People are struggling to make ends meet, and they want so much to believe they've won a sweepstakes," Cooper said. "So they are willing to ignore the warning signs."