Angry man, fed up, decides to give away
ten dream homes in Spain.
You could grab one.
I'm George Scott and I was angry. Furious. Enraged. Boiling.
Let me tell you how I transformed my fury into a fun raffle project where everybody gets to win – you, a worthy charity, and our own bank account.
This giveaway is dedicated to all those who created and fueled my rage:
Bungling gormless property agents, rapacious grasping hotel corporations, witless cowardly lawyers, unscrupulous parasitic banks, wimpy US Congressmen and vile slimy Mafia money launderers.
As for the heartless impervious bureaucrats – I won't even go there.
Listen. I'm dead serious here. "Angry" doesn't begin to cover it.
Let me tell you the story. I didn't start out with flames coming out of my ears; I got there step by step.
To begin with, my doctor only annoyed me when he told me I had to slow down now that I'm 72. He told me to retire. And I was just a tad cross that my body wasn't doing its job as well as before.
And it was irritating to have to sell the ten glorious homes I'd just put so much time and money and soul into making into our second hotel and reaching No. 3 in popularity out of 1,035 hotels on the island.
But learning to let go of things is part of life.
Besides, two banks and a licensed surveyor had done an official valuation of the properties, putting their worth at five million euros, so at least I wasn't going to have to go hungry in retirement.
Pompous, self-important parasites ...
After making the decision to sell, I first gave the properties to agents in three countries.
After three months, I could see that was a washout, a fiasco.
They sent us pathetic penurious wannabes, self-deluded no-hopers, con artists, time wasters.
Three of the biggest and best-known real estate and property agents in the world. You look at their cars and offices, reeking of money, and then feel the arrogance with which they treat you. I was offering them 300,000 euros in commission ($415K/£200K) and they treated me like a snotrag.
Which I might have ignored if they had done their jobs, but they failed utterly.
They were fools, buffoons. It was a farce, a flop.
I fired the agents. My anger started there.
But I had no inkling then that it might lead to me actually giving my ten heavenly houses and studios away.
Ah well, we'll always have Paris ...
After the debacle with the agents, I offered my properties to a major hotel chain. After all, when our hotel was named by a New York guidebook as one of the world's fifty best (we think this is an absurd notion, but they wrote it so I'll quote it) they asked if I might sell it to them.
I didn't, of course, but now I thought they might be interested in the second hotel.
But now that it was me coming to them instead of them coming to me, things were different. They offered me half price.
"Don't take it personally," said the rep, "we try it with everybody". Well, we all know the big corporations make it a fine art to screw us little guys, but still – half price – puhleeze, as my teenage daughter would say.
My head of steam really began to build.
A million euros weighs about twenty pounds ...
Then a call came in from a European financial center – "international investors". They told me they'd checked us out and that the price was OK with them. I flew over, met with them, and they put an attaché case with a million euros in my hand.
This was the "deposit" they said. Then they showed me two more suitcases full of used notes – hundred dollar bills, fifty pound notes, and blue things I assumed were Swiss francs.
They were money launderers.
I walked away, but my anger went up by five notches at least. Not just with them, either, though I knew it was drug or prostitution or rackets money. Sure, I hated them for how they got it and how they dangled it in front of me.
But I was also angry at myself because for about five heady minutes I was really, really tempted to take it.
That was when I decided to give my properties away in a raffle.
Setting up a raffle in Spain is as simple as flipping a switch. You tell a lawyer and he does it. We told ours and he did it.
But the story gets complicated here, though better for you.
If it isn't the bureaucrats it's the lawmakers ...
We hadn't counted on the US Congress getting involved. Where do you think my anger index went to when they put their big noses in?
We all know that many (too many) Congressmen are pusillanimous poltroons who either roll over at the sight of a dollar bill or sit up and beg like an underfed hound. So some of them, puppets of the casinos in their districts, pushed through a bill not to let Americans – half our market for the raffle – send money abroad for "gaming" purposes.
They weren't actually aiming at us, their targets were the London-based Internet sports betting websites used by lots of Americans.
But it put a spoke in our wheel.
Predictably, there was a flurry of protest. Many of the 35 million Americans who take the occasional online flutter found themselves inconvenienced.
Still, it became law and until the new Congress changes it we're stuck with it.
It looked as though we would have to kill our raffle idea. At least in the form of a straightforward buy-a-ticket-win-a-prize raffle.
Maybe that's when my anger escalated to fury.
Maybe that was the moment when I decided, "To Hell with them all, there's got to be a legal way around these turkeys – all the arrogant, corrupt, shameless hypocrites making my retirement a nightmare".
What could we do that would be completely legal, but get to the same end?
Turning potential disaster into a "can't lose, win-win" opportunity for you.
Standing in the shower one morning, an answer came to me – we could sell hotel vouchers instead of raffle tickets.
That would be perfectly legal. Hotels do it all the time.
The vouchers would be good toward a stay in our hotels.
But they could also participate in the raffle.
All we had to do was put numbers on the vouchers. The ten lucky people holding those numbers would win the ten properties.
That solution satisfied the lawyers. Selling hotel vouchers is totally legal, even hotel vouchers with numbers on them.
And suddenly the deal had just gotten lots, lots better for our customers.
When's the last time a loophole worked for you?
Is it a loophole? Yes. Will it stay open? Who knows?
But in the meantime, it's a sweetheart proposition. You invest in a hotel voucher as a deposit on your stay with us; we give you a free participation in the drawings for the ten properties.
But you still get to use your hotel voucher. Or give it away. Or sell it.
You're not out of pocket no matter what.
Actually, the way it works we both get to have our cake and eat it too.
We are giving you a huge incentive to visit our hotels, stay with us a few nights. When you stay with us, we take the full price of your voucher off your bill so your raffle ticket is free.
Even better, if you invest in a hotel voucher/raffle ticket and you don't win a house or studio, and can't visit us because you live too far away, you can still sell your voucher anytime before the end of 2012.
Everyone who visits our hotels using a voucher takes part in the raffle free.
Anyone who can't visit us still takes part in the raffle draws and has a chance to sell their voucher before 2013.
Have I lost my marbles?
Possibly, but the idea is catching on, people are joining in. Of course it's lots harder to find 33,333 people to get involved in a property sale than one guy with a fat wallet.
On the other hand, this is lots of fun.
And if you do the numbers, taking the voucher cost off your bill when you stay with us doesn't cost us any more than we would pay as commission to an agent if you booked online or with an agency.
Is there a catch? Yes. To use your voucher we ask you to stay at least three nights with us. That way you'll spend about four times the amount you paid for your voucher. About four times the amount we give you back.
Believe me, we're not a charity for people who want a free holiday home in Spain.
And that's the story behind this project.
If you'd like to join in and participate, press HERE
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