You know, the positive press "advertising" they could have gotten by just giving it to her would probably have made up for the loss.

I will be buying a house next year. KB Home is already on my black list. I just added Centex.

I figure someone needs to be looking at the supposed "actual winner". Like, see if she even really exists, for starters? It's real easy for the company to just tell Ms. Baca that someone else actually won. But assuming the other party exists, it shouldn't be too hard to come up with if she's connected to Centex or not. And if the "other winner" bit is the legitimate truth, then Centex better pony up with a second house for Ms. Baca.

25,000 worth of furniture or a 250,000 house....hmmm my math says they are of equal value!

Sue 'em blind! I'd love to know how this court case ends.

Awesome way to screw themselves. I am so glad to see that they are crooked. Its one thing to say oops we screwed up. Its another entirely to have her go through the whole prize process and then say oops so sorry, too bad so sad, sucks to be you but you dont win.

I hope her lawyer is worth every dime.

There's no such thing as a slam dunk case, but this one is close. (Hope she has a way to pay the taxes)

@Exvee: I wondered the same thing! My uncle used to sell raffle tickets for color TVs and awesome new radios, for $1 a pop. He'd keep the money and tell people so-and-so from two towns over won the prize. He'd get away with $100+ every time. If someone complained, he'd give them their dollar back. $99 profit ain't bad.

ok.. so if she won the house and her key opened it, How the Heck did the 2nd person get the key and open the house? I mean, did they reload the fire crackers and just take the key and place it in the jar again? Logic dictates when its a big prize like that, once someones won, well.. you dont keep on playing the game!

I notice a bit of a double standard here. Regarding a contest in which ten people "won" an ATV, the consensus was that it was appropriate to hold a raffle, and the loser bringing the lawsuit in the wrong.

But if its a house, oh, that's different. In both cases my opinion is they should sue.

Seems like a load of crap, to me. Even if there was some sort of clerical error, where 2 people were named as "winners" somehow, it was Centex's responsibility to ensure that their drawing methods were accurate and fool-proof. They need to give this woman her house, and they also need to give the other woman her house. Since there only seems to be one house up for grabs, Centex needs to find an equal home and offer it to one or the other.

What do the documents say that she signed? I went to a NJ Devils game once and they had a game where fans had to shoot pucks into a small opening at the goal. They drove an escalade out on the ice and announced the fans are playing for an escalade. Well someone made the shot!!! and as they were taking the people off the ice, the announcer said congratulations and that person is being entered into a raffle with all other winners of the game during the season. Maybe this is what happened here

Now Centex says the accidentally named two winners and that Baca agreed to be in a raffle to see who would really get the house.

Looks to me like they screwed up and threw together a raffle excuse at the last second.

It is one thing to screw-up and catch it right away, but she signed a form... that's a contact. She then performed under that contract by doing all the appearances, using her image, etc. Now it is Centex's turn to perform. They're either breaching said contract or engaging in fraud. All else fails, she can pursue a theory of quasi-contract [en.wikipedia.org]

There is also a huge set of laws involving prizes and raffles that changes state to state. I say she's got a good case.

@Major-General: I think the difference here is they already touted her as the winner in advertising and in front of a ton of people at a football game.

With the ATV deal (while I personally felt everyone was in the right and the people raffling it off should have been screwed as hard as possible for such a fuckup) they at least realized right off the back there was a screwup. Here they strung her along.

Hey, with the SGA still on strike, move them both in and make it a reality show.

Here's the ATV article that Major-General and Falconfire are both referring to:
[consumerist.com]

Difficult to speculate, these contests or whatever often have dispute resolution procedures. I imaging that somewhere in the forms are the procedures that describe what happens in the even of a malfunctions or mistake or whatever and it probably does include random drawings. These conditions are common in these types of giveaways, even McDonalds Monopoly.

But I do agree that the use of her image in advertising may demonstrate that Centex believed her to be the winner which complicates the issue. It's one thing to have a mistake in the drawing, it's another to tell someone they've one, use them in advertisement as the winner and then come back and tell them they didn't win.

@ExVee: Wow! Go read the original article. The other woman, Nina Anderson, is a *Centex employee*!!! Anytime I have ever read the rules of a contest, employees of the company holding the contest are ineligible.

First thought that pops into my mind is someone's mistress is getting paid off....

My appologies, WGA...

@ColoradoShark: No, you read the article incorrectly, Nina Anderson is the Centex employee that signed the contract with Veronica Baca.

I don't understand why (in this case and in the ATV case) the people running the contest would keep allowing people to try more keys after the winning key had already been found. It's like saying the first person to the finish line is the winner and then waiting for 10 people to get there and telling them that there will have to be a raffle to decide who the real winner is.

@testsicles: My apologies to the Centex employee for implying she was someone's mistress.

@testsicles: Would anyone else find it funny if their form of dispute resolution was mandatory arbitration?

@CMU_Bueller:

Only Centex

A Raffle? Between two people? We call that a coin toss round these parts.

... 25,000 cash sounds better than a house given some houses are more problematic especially if you already own one, but to make it a gift card to a furniture store? thats just horrendous

not saying they are the good guys, but people do make mistakes. But with the rest of what happened, who knows

Seems to me that the company might have a slightly stronger footing if they hadn't run ads in the papers congratulating this woman for winning the house.

I wonder how much this attorney is charging. I imagine she'll be carrying a mortgage on her house even though she wins it.

from the original article:

According to the statement, the finalists agreed in writing to a random drawing to resolve the issue, and Hankins won in the random drawing.

If she really did agree to a random drawing, and is only suing after she lost it, I don't think she has a leg to stand on.

I think Centex made an honest mistake, but either way the time for her to take legal action was BEFORE she agreed to a drawing, not after losing the drawing.

@madanthony:

You need to remember, this is Centex's word that she agreed to the drawing. It would be in their own best interests to lie about it.

I would be certainly looking into this Hankins person. Also, did this Hankins person go through the same process of being a winner as she did?

Surely Centex has about 5000 homes sitting empty and unsold and they could just give her one.

Gee, If I were running a contest to give away something big, like say a home, I would have to take the 2 minutes to make sure only 1 key f**king works. Idiots. Centex is scamming her or they owe her a house for their retarded employees screwup.

Centex is in deep s**t on this one. No way is a gift card going to make this woman go away. The lawyer could get his fee from the Centex company if he won couldn't he?

Screw Centex. They're the ones who've destroyed thousands of acres of wetlands and forests to build their stupid looking cookie cutter subdivisions. I hope they get taken for all they've got.

It would appear they have given her a house:

[www.rockymountainnews.com],1299,DRMN_15_5742415,00.html

"After the meeting, the Bacas' daughter, Carla Baca-Costello, said that Centex told the Bacas it would give them the original home in Brighton or another comparable home, and pay the couple's attorneys fees."

Don't winners of contests like these have to come up with the taxes right away? I have heard that over 1/2 the winners on game shows don't take the prizes because they have to pay taxes to take them away. Wouldn't that pretty much kill the likelihood that she could accept the house without a bunch of cash in the bank?

@RandomHookup:
Driving home in a new car or carrying off an expensive prize from a game show can be done much quicker than signing over the deed/title to a home. I would imagine she would have time to find financing for the taxes before "closing". She could probably even get a mortgage for the taxes.

She will spend a bunch of money on the lawsuit, win in court, then the IRS will call and seize the house because she can't afford the 30% in taxes.

That would be the really crappy ending.

@RandomHookup:

Yes taxes are a major factor when you win a big prize, i.e. car, house or the lottery. I always wonder how the folks on extreme makeover handle the tax implications since most of the families are pretty badly off or have had some type of crisis.

@dorianh49: I've heard nothing but negatives about Centex so I'd be avoiding their homes anyway. Pretty much on-par with KB homes in terms of quality.

Welcome to 'colorful' Colorado ! The state with the most clueless business practices, little consumer protection, and a culture of lying. That's why the bad tract builders like US, KB, Centex, and Horton Homes LOVE it here. Where I live, the best part of a real estate deal is finding out what unstable, toxic piece of land they're not responsible for...

@pgrote: Here is the link that you tried to provide. Turns out both women are getting houses. Rocky Mountain News Article

Yes, here's the key phrase from that article: "...after a firestorm of media coverage that elicited support for the Bacas, and outrage toward the sponsors, from all over the country - Centex decided to offer the couple a home."

"Centex decided to offer the couple a home." Aww, how sweet of them. Centex is the good guy! How about, "Centex decided to honor their original promise to give the couple a house." Lil more accurate.

LOL, I cannot help but keep thinking that Centex sounds like something one should use to cure some sort of fungus.

Why would a toe-jam company give away a house?

Centex: The Athlete's Foot of the housing industry

@ColoradoShark: I'm pretty sure that Nina Anderson was the Centex employee that signed Veronica Baca's form -- not the woman who "also" won the house.