Last year, people in the party leadership were warned about the sales methods.
DN's revelation that Kombispel, a subsidiary of A-lotteriet, which in turn is owned by the Social Democrats, exploits elderly people in aggressive lottery sales via telephone, has evoked strong emotions. Over the weekend, the lottery's CEO Jonas Lindholm was fired with immediate effect.
Aggressive sales
Kombispel's chairman of the board has resigned and all board members have been asked to leave their posts so that a new board can be elected at an extraordinary general meeting.
Jonas Nygren (S), former chairman of the municipal council in Sundbyberg and union chief at the Tenants' Association, has now taken over as CEO of the lottery group.
It was last week that former employees of the telemarketing company Effective Communication, which has been selling lottery tickets for Kombispel since 2022, testified in DN about the company's aggressive methods. Several described the methods as "harassment", and told about selling lottery tickets to people who likely did not understand the terms of purchase, such as that lottery subscriptions need to be cancelled.
Reported 35 times
Since May 2022, Kombispel has been reported 35 times to the Consumer Agency. Several cases involve people with dementia who claim they did not understand what they bought, according to Dagens Nyheter. Six of the reports have come in after the scandal broke and they concern, among other things, aggressive or misleading marketing, according to a compilation by the Consumer Agency for TT.
In 2023, the lottery business gave 9.8 million kronor to the Social Democrats' party funds and 6.3 million to SSU.
