Save.ca

This business, owned by a conglomerate of fake news newspapers (Metroland), supposedly connects customers to sales, coupons, new businesses offering special deals, and contests. The customer subscribes to them to receive marketing emails and direct mail flyers. But the real purpose of this business is to provide sales leads for businesses of dubious reputation. I've been subscribed to them for over a year but found very few if any deals, and a few contests. A couple of days ago they sent me a message to enter a "contest" to win $5000 worth of "smart home" (their words) equipment including video door camera. I assumed it would be something like Nest with a door cam, a few indoor surveillance cams and motion sensors hooked up to a self contained alarm panel. I never win these things so I didn't expect to win this time. Then today I got an email from a company I'd never heard of, stating I won the contest and that I'd need to contact them right away or I'd lose the prize. In fine print at the bottom it stated they'd contact me as well. Immediately I became suspicious. When I looked them up online I found they're a fly by night subcontractor alarm monitoring company with poor customer reviews. The two main complaints from customers were being lied to about the equipment being installed or the service, and being harassed by the company calling them almost daily demanding that they upgrade their service and their equipment. They also change monitoring providers frequently (ADT, Chubb etc.) without telling customers, who get hit with a bill for 60 days' extra service for not giving the provider 60 days notice as per their contract. The sleazy subcontractor refuses to take responsibility when it's their fault. Since they can't maintain a business relationship with their own alarm service provider, this doesn't reflect well on the company's honesty or reputation. So now I can expect to be harassed with emails and phone calls trying to sign me up for their alarm "service" which I neither need nor wanted in the first place. I strenuously object to being scammed out of my personal information by save.ca to give to sleazy operators, using fake contests. I will be looking into filing a privacy complaint with the Canadian federal government about these shysters. Who knows what other scam artists they've given my personal information to? Big lesson learned: never enter contests if you're not told which company is giving the prize away, or if you don't know anything about the company. Do research on the company or take a pass on entering.