Amelia Conway was scrolling through Facebook when she spotted her dream car being given away in an online charity raffle.
She bought $120 worth of tickets to enter the draw without thinking much of it.
The giveaway company, known as Hello Lifestyle Australia, advertised that it was "proudly supporting" the Christian youth charity Red Frogs via regular giveaways of customised four-wheel drives, Ducati motorcycles and overseas holidays.
In a live video draw announced on social media months later, Amelia's name was read out as the winner of the modified Widebody Y62 Nissan Patrol and all associated on-road costs.
"It was unbelievable really ... it was just nuts, everyone was going crazy," the 22-year-old hairdresser, from the regional Victorian town of Colac, said.
Hello Lifestyle Australia flew Amelia and her sister up to Queensland to pick up her new car, which they later drove back down to Victoria.
When they returned home, a friend suggested she get a Personal Property Securities Register check on the vehicle. Its results left her "gutted".
"It came back that the vehicle was encumbered and there was still money owing on it," Amelia said.
"I thought maybe they had paid it out and it's taken a little while to clear, but that wasn't the case."
The ABC has made multiple attempts to contact Hello Lifestyle Australia but has not received a response.
The company has since shut down its website and social media accounts.
The Queensland company remains registered with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
Visitor delivers 'heartbreaking' news
Text messages show Amelia made several attempts to contact Hello Lifestyles Australia, asking if the vehicle had been transferred to her name and if all on-road costs had been paid.
What began as regular responses soon dwindled to little communication from the company.
Then one day, a man arrived at Amelia's house.
"He said, 'I'm here to pick up the Patrol for Nissan finance as it hasn't been paid for'," she said.
"I was pretty upset … I just froze."
The ABC contacted Nissan's Financial Services, which said it was unable to comment on individual customers due to privacy restrictions.
Stripped of her dream car and left out of pocket by about $1,000 in on-road costs, Amelia was devastated.
"It's not fair... It's just heartbreaking," she said.
Victoria Police confirmed it was investigating the matter.
"The information is currently being assessed and further enquires are being made to see if any criminal offence has occurred," it said in a statement.
A spokesperson for another company which customised the vehicles that were raffled off, but had no involvement in running the raffle, alleged Hello Lifestyle Australia owed it tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid invoices.
The company spokesperson said they were "shocked" to hear Amelia's car had been seized and called for her to receive restitution.
Perth dad spent $7.5k on prize car
After a few beers at the pub, Perth dad Aaron Edmundson spotted the same type of car being advertised by Hello Lifestyle Australia while scrolling online.
"I thought, 'oh great a car!' I bought some tickets and woke up the next morning panicking thinking what have I put my bank card into online," he said.
"It looked reasonably legitimate … so I just put it on the backburner and didn't really think about it."
He said the competition he entered was advertised as "win this car including all on-road costs valued at $120,000".
Then a few months later in December 2021, Christmas came early for Aaron.
He received an email that asked him to give the company an urgent call. When he did, they asked Aaron if he was sitting down for the news he was about to receive on a live-streamed social media video.
"It was pretty surreal, pretty crazy. It was a good feeling, they told me I'd won the car. I've never really won anything in my life … so it was pretty wild," he said.
After months of back and forth with the company, the brand new wide-bodied Nissan Patrol was couriered over to Perth.
Aaron invested $7,500 in on-road costs, roadworthy, licensing and stamp duty — all expenses he said Hello Lifestyle Australia promised to reimburse.
But after a "mountain of messages" and "months and months of emails getting ignored", Aaron said he had not received a cent.
"I apparently had the wrong email … and it just went on and on and on."
Eventually Aaron gave up on his efforts to get the money back. He and his wife later decided they didn't need the car and sold it.
Case sparks consumer watchdog warning
Red Frogs chief operational officer Steve Davies said Hello Lifestyle Australia had hoped to give the charity $150,000 but weren't able to "deliver anywhere near that".
"They did pay us a small amount on that [first] raffle but that was all we ever got off them. They did subsequent raffles and we never got anything," he said.
Mr Davies said the amount Red Frogs did receive was invested into supporting its volunteer program.
He said he understood Hello Lifestyle Australia had since shut down.
In a statement, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said consumers should check for a lottery's permit number prior to entering.
"If a consumer wins a high-value prize such as a car, they should make sure that the lottery organiser provides them with the legal paperwork to accompany that prize," the commission said.
