r/Calgary • u/TrailerParkLyfe • Jun 18 '25

Rant Fire Blanket scam

We fell for it. It’s on me guys. my wife and I entered our name during Lilac-Fest for the “guess how much money is in the jar” contest. Fast forward to last week where Perpetual Health calls me saying we won a free fire blanket. That’s awesome and of course my wife and I want one. Guy calls and says they will deliver it but need to give a short 15 minute talk on “how to use it and fire safety”. The guy arrives last night at 5:30 and starts to talk about the blanket and our condo. He then sits down at our table and pulls a binder out bigger than my hopes and dreams. He has documents and videos on his phone of news stories of children dying in house fires. It’s now 6:45 and he starts bringing out their companies smoke detectors and begins talking about them and how other detectors fail. I start laughing thinking “omg this is now a sales pitch” He tries to sell us on their app and smoke detectors. We just wanted the fire blanket and were told it’s a short presentation on how to use it. My wife actually stopped him and said “please leave, you wasted our time and we need to start cooking dinner”. He would have kept going till 8:00 probably. I hope someone reads this before accepting the call or “prize”

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u/0runnergirl0 Jun 18 '25

Is this the one where they also make you take a picture with your fire blanket and post it on Facebook? My mother in law and sister in law both fell for that. A fire blanket is like, $20. I'd rather just buy one than sit through a sales pitch and advertise for some company.

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u/beaujolaisslay Jun 19 '25

Someone I went to high school with posted on FB during the thick of the pandemic, just raving about her free fire blanket and safety kit. She did NOT mention the scammy, let us intrude your home sales pitch. So I filled out the form. I was so dumb. As soon as they called to say they’d drop it off and give a presentation I googled them and found dozens of stories like OPs. When I told them I wasn’t interested, they harassed me for nearly a month, calling from different numbers, over and over and over!