Car Raffle or Sale

Car-dealer

Hi,

I have a small car place and we have had a Mercedes Estate C180K SE on sale for a few months and despite a few calls we have not shifted it. So I was thinking to myself, would it be a good idea to raffle the car off.

The car is in top condition and we sourced it from Mercedes. The car is valued at around €27995, but lets say im selling at €24995. The VRT is about €8000. If I was to raffle the car off I'd need to sell about 500 tickets at €50 euro a ticket, or 250 tickets at €100. In the later for a €100 you'd have the chance to win a €25000 car with the odds of 250/1.

Now I come from a fairly working class kind of background and there were not many opportunities for ordinary folk to win cars of this kind.

The question is: do you think this sort of idea is a goer, would i sell 500 tickets at €50 or 250 €100>

Other question: how to do it, what sort of tickets, online website or ordinary tickets ect. Sell tickets at a fair or online ect? I'd have to exclude family from buying tickets to avoid problems if one of them won and Id probably look to get some independent verificaiton system.

Also I was thinking of donating a certain percentage of the return to charity, say 10% of revenue or profit to one of my favourite charities.

Im a business graduate have these mad ideas from time to time - any thoughts for me?

Anan1

Sounds like an awful lot of grief to sell one car to me. What happens if you sell some, but not all, of the tickets?

smash

it could take forever to sell the tickets, I think even €50 is too much too - at the end of the day it's a limited market who actually want the car, that's why it hasn't sold!

There's also legalities involved in raffles - you can't have a never ending raffle if the tickets don't sell and if you said for example "Raffle on May 1st" and you've only sold 5 tickets, then you'll still have to raffle the car!

and what warranty would you give on a raffled car?

mumblin deaf ro

There was a similar thread to this on askaboutmoney recently - it may be that you need a licence to hold a lottery of that kind. There was a guy on the news last night doing the same thing to shift his truck (he was hoping to raise €85K). Also if you only sell three tickets you may have to still give the car away.

Stevie Dakota

Personally for €50 I would want a shot at a Lambo, not a C-Class!

F-Stop

Can you clear one thing up, the €8,000 VRT will already be paid on the car, or is that part of the prize for the lucky winner?

Stevie Dakota

F-Stop wrote: »

Can you clear one thing up, the €8,000 VRT will already be paid on the car, or is that part of the prize for the lucky winner?

Owen

You'll also need to get a license from the Gardaí IIRC to do this.

Anan1

Might be easier to break the car and sell each part individually?

mickdw

I saw a guy raffling a massey ferguson 35x at fairs for 10 or 20 euro a ticket. He was back a year later with the same tractor

L-M

I remember a couple on a tv show recently who went to raffle off there house. They actually exceeded the number of tickets they need, and we on to making more money that they expecting. There were some problems with legalities and i think they had to cancel it. Something about having to apply to the gambling commision or something(albeit in England, i'm sure there is something similar in force here).

Edit: Forgot to answer you're question. I'm not a gambling man, so no, i wouldn't pay fifty euro. Two people sitting near me, and neither would they.

Car-dealer

Oh dear, doesnt seem like a good idea.

Yes the VRT paid and full warranty from me was included.

To best honest i wasnt doing it to get rid of the car, I could turn around and shift it trade price in the morning. I was hoping to offer it up to the average man or woman who might not ever have €25000 to buy a car.

Regarding the airport cars: who would ever drive a high performance sport car, most sell them, and its not 500/1, its more like 50,000/1 chance.

I was also thinking of offering part of the money back to a charity I like.

Well, the feedback doesnt seem positive so I'll probably not take the idea any further. I was thinking to myself that the Mercedes was a little too boring, I also had a nice Mazda RX-8 Sports car that I was thinking of using, but actually I sold that and with all the legal issues ect think I might steer clear.

How do those companies that do "spot the ball" at the Airports for sports car - make it work? Do they just get thousands of folk paying €20 - ?

F-Stop

Car-dealer wrote: »

Yes the VRT paid and full warranty from me was included.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to cast doubt re the VRT, it just wasn't clear to me from the way it was worded (or the way I read it).

What's the deal with tax on charity donations? I mean, does it work out financially if you claim on a 30,000 donation of the car to a local school for raffle purposes - let them deal with that side of it. Then whatever you don't get back from the taxman you put down as the cost of good PR and goodwill in the community, plus advertising as it will potentially draw in some customers. If you pick a big enough school in a busy enough community it could work out quite well especially if you do services? And, by god do the schools need some help since Brat O'Keefe got his grubby paws on them.

I know nothing about this stuff, it's just and idea. If you were to balance it out you might break even or better.

Car-dealer

hi

excellent idea - but im too small and a new small car company, mostly do direct sales and dont have a garage for services - although I do partner with one.

I set the business up as a side line after university - I always have my sights on doing something philanthropic - would love to support a rugby team but have my eye on a different charity.

always good to try out new ideas - even if you sometimes take the lash on here - kidding!

tracker-man

something similar is happening in meath at the moment, a light aircraft is being raffled off, 100 euros per ticket and 500 hundred tickets maximum. There is a limit, eg 300 must be sold for the raffle to go ahead.

ninty9er

Stevie Dakota wrote: »

Personally for €50 I would want a shot at a Lambo, not a C-Class!

http://www.fiannafail.ie/superdraw.phpx

http://www.finegael.ie//page.cfm/area/information/page/National%20Superdraw%202008/pkey/1165



Not quite a Lambo, and not practiced by the other parties, but as a fundraiser, it works quite well.

money84

Hi,

Just wondering if you ever went ahead with that idea? I had the same idea recently and thought of selling 2k tickets for 10e each and raising 20k and raffling a car for 12k making 8k profit but giving some of this to charity? Do you think this would work for me?

Seth Brundle

too old - PM the OP!