There's generally no one doing the work basically. A gym I went to had notoriously bad competitions and advertising. It was never the "last memberships available" and there wasn't actually "10 days left" the counter just changed back on the final day. No one ever got the prizes either, they just never announced a winner, and a new competition started the same day. People still signed up by the hundreds.

Hundereds of formal complaints by people from the gym to the ombudsman and consumer affairs over more than five years amounted to literally nothing. They still do everything they used to.

Even more seriously, they didn't pay their employees superannuation, and it took years to even start the process of sorting that out.

As these car competitions are run by private businesses and not the car manufacturers my guess is they are simply too small of a fish to go after.

Now, just last week that same gym was implicated in a drug trafficking ring. But that's a different department of law enforcement...

I suspect the parent comment or is from Australia.

ehnto mentions the ombudsman. I don't think they have this position in the U.S

Various locales in the US have Ombudsman positions. It's definitely not universal, though.

for an alternative viewpoint, I'm from the UK and I see these car sweepstake scams all over the place. I think the region you're in has a strong impact on what the police's priorities are, due to different leadership.

> I'm from the UK[..] I think the region you're in has a strong impact on what the police's priorities are, due to different leadership.

Totally agree! The few times I compare ads on television from Netherlands vs England the difference is huge. There's a huge amount of gambling advertisement in England. Advertising regarding something that's addicting is often quickly restricted in The Netherlands. Secondly the loan advertisements. In Netherlands the advertisements have to mention that it costs money (seems super obvious) plus there are restrictions on the interest rate. Seems in England companies can do whatever they want.

If a lot of people get into money problems it'll affect everyone (stealing might go up, or they'll not pay back loans, etc). It is so strange that this is allowed.

> If a lot of people get into money problems it'll affect everyone

This is called "negative externality". Another example is junk food. It does affect everyone when people are unhealthy (health care costs for instance).

> It is so strange that this is allowed.

I think the US have ruled that advertisement is protected by freedom of speech. Actually some people get extremely defensive when talking about restricting advertisement (nanny state argument...).

Advertising is indeed covered by the first amendment. However, various US Supreme Court decisions have also confirmed that the government can make restrictions on misleading commercial speech and that, in general, commercial speech is less protected than speech more broadly.

http://www.lawpublish.com/amend1.html

It’s not just the UK in Europe though. Sweden is worse for gambling advertising than the UK ever has been, at least 2/3rds of evening TV adverts here are for online casinos.

In Sweden I was surprised at the the gambling games aimed at kids at fairs/theme parks. Roulette/wheel of fortune gambling to win big bags of sweets and chocolates. In the UK I think you'd at least have to introduce an element of skill into the game. (Also I've never seen so much candy for sale as in Sweden! It's amazing Swedes have any teeth left.).

Swedish kids are in general only allowed sweets on Saturdays which helps. That actually leads on to a pretty dark story too long to write in this margin, but Wikipedia has a good summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vipeholm_experiments

> I see these car sweepstake scams all over the place

Are you sure it's the same scam? A car sweepstake is a real thing outside of the particular scam mentioned.

I haven't checked the T&Cs, but it has all the same traits - set up in an outlet village, car being presented with "you could win" banners, aggressive salespeople pestering passers-by to sign up with their personal details. The aggressive sales tactics especially are a bad omen in my eyes.

I've seen something like this in shopping centre in Ireland.

But the car manufacturers logo was all over it, which makes me think it's legit.. but it is always there.. which is suspect.

It is incredibly frustrating that police don’t seem to actively enforce the majority of the laws. My local police seem anemic. There sure are a lot of them, though. Patrol cars are always visible. And, (right-wing) politicians seem to always want to be hiring more and upgrading their gear. For instance, recently they asked for a $30M shooting range. But, if the local newspapers are a good record, it seems that all they seem to do is give out speeding tickets, enforce drug laws, and and bust minorities and immigrants (for whatever). I’m not being facetious.

Anyone in the US have tips on how to get involved to help oversee and direct them? I’m pretty naive and don’t have much time, but I do have motivation, at least. I have tried calling them in the past to get a better understanding of what they do, but it was difficult to find the right person to talk to. I’ve considered doing independent research and reporting (via FOIA), but I also fear repercussions.

>It is incredibly frustrating that police don’t seem to actively enforce the majority of the laws

It's not just the police. It's the DA and judges too. Also, weirdly enough, the defense attorneys and public have a very large burden of fault here.

A court clerk I know realized while filing records that our county had been in violation of state law for over 7 years in handling one type of case. Hundreds, if not thousands of cases have been prosecuted in that time. Yet, there was exactly 0 formal complaints about the counties violation of the statutes.

The clerk in question had to point that out to an attorney quietly, who then finally made a complaint on a case they were handling. After that the country dropped a few hundred pending cases on its books. But why did it take 7 years? Why hasn't anyone went "wow, the county violated people's rights for years, should someone be prosecuted"

Nope, just more revenue collection for all involved.

It depends on the structure of the municipality. You may have a civilian oversight board which has some level of control, and this could be an elected or appointed position. The other option being to become mayor, city manager, or whatever chief executive your area has with oversight over the police force.

In many counties, Sheriff is an elected position.

> Why haven't they all been shutdown if they are clearly illegal?

Is anyone seriously complaining? This is the first I've heard about this scam in years.

The local DA and the DOJ have limited resources, probably. Popehat often talks about this.

Because after decades of capitalists whining about the large and bloated state and trying to cut down from every possible angle, there is probably noone left to do these jobs.

This is the market sorting itself out.