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worst company in america
Worst Company In America 2008: Round 2 Bracket
After a furious series of battle, the weaklings have been vanquished and the Round 1 champions in our Worst Company in America 2008 contest advance to the second round. See the full-sized graphic, suitable for framing or forming the basis of informal office betting pools, inside...
contests
Fill Out Our Survey, Enter Drawing For $300 AMEX Card
Our publisher's advertising monkeys are giving you the chance to win a $300 AMEX card if you tell us a little bit about yourself in this 5-10 minute survey. Giving an email address is optional to complete the survey, but necessary if you want to be eligible for the drawing, otherwise we won't have any way to contact you.
(Photo: Getty)
text messaging
A class-action lawsuit has been filed in California against Verizon and several third-party companies, alleging that they promoted illegal gambling by enticing customers to pay to enter contests in which there was an "infinitesimally" small chance of winning, reports RCRWireless. "The suit centers on 99-cent charges levied on wireless consumers who played contests associated with popular TV shows like 'Deal or No Deal' and 'Sole Survivor.'" The plaintiffs claim that the contests were less promotional sweepstakes than "illegal lotteries designed to generate revenues far in excess of the value of the cash awarded."
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Lawsuit Says Verizon's Text Message TV Show Contests Are "Illegal Gambling"
A class-action lawsuit has been filed in California against Verizon and several third-party companies, alleging that they promoted illegal gambling by enticing customers to pay to enter contests in which there was an "infinitesimally" small chance of winning, reports RCRWireless. "The suit centers on 99-cent charges levied on wireless consumers who played contests associated with popular TV shows like 'Deal or No Deal' and 'Sole Survivor.'" The plaintiffs claim that the contests were less promotional sweepstakes than "illegal lotteries designed to generate revenues far in excess of the value of the cash awarded."
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contests
Do you enjoy confessing embarrassing details? Mint, the personal finance new kid on the Internet block, is offering up to $5,000 (paid directly to your credit card bill) to two people with the most horrifying personal finance disasters. The winners get free financial counseling as well. You can submit text—"sob stories"—up to 1000 words, or a video—"trainwrecks"—up to four minutes or 20 MB, whichever comes first. If you were paid to do any writing over the past year, you're ineligible (we already checked).
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Tell The Best Personal Finance Horror Story To Mint, Have Your Credit Card Balance Paid Off
Do you enjoy confessing embarrassing details? Mint, the personal finance new kid on the Internet block, is offering up to $5,000 (paid directly to your credit card bill) to two people with the most horrifying personal finance disasters. The winners get free financial counseling as well. You can submit text—"sob stories"—up to 1000 words, or a video—"trainwrecks"—up to four minutes or 20 MB, whichever comes first. If you were paid to do any writing over the past year, you're ineligible (we already checked).
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resolutions
Gibson Awards Prize To Artist As Promised!
Yay Internets! Tonedeff—the artist who won Lollapalooza's Last Band Standing over a year ago but never received the 10k prize package from Gibson—has received his prize. He emailed us today and wrote, "Thanks for covering the story and your support. Your blog made a HELL of a difference. Expect a shout out on my next project." We can't imagine how he's going to work "consumerist" into a rhyme, but okay. After the story went Digg-public last Friday, Tonedeff got a call from a Gibson rep Saturday morning—and a few days later he received an apology from Gibson's CEO personally.More »
sleazy
Gibson Screws Musician Out Of $10,000 Worth Of Equipment
A musician named Tonedeff won the Lolapalooza Last Band Standing contest in 2006. Part of the prize package was "$10,000 worth of equipment from our friends at Gibson. (yes, believe it!)." Well, Tonedeff believed it, and he's spent the last year and a half trying to get Gibson to make good on their promise. As Tonedeff notes on his blog, maybe he should have seen this coming when Don Pitts—Gibson's Ambassador of Empty Promises (shown above with devil eyes)—told him, "I mean, this is kind of weird, because you know, you DON'T play the guitar or drums." More »
Pillsbury has told a New York food co-op to stop using the phrase "bake-off" because they own it. Pillsbury coined the phrase back in 1949 (according to this unverifiable web source), and then trademarked it in the early 1970s (according to another). Now you know. (Thanks to Sarah!)
contests
Didn't Win BOBs
Oh, by the way, we didn't win that Deutsche-Welle Best of The Blogs contest. We got third for our category. We probably could have finished stronger if I had done another post about voting for us, but I couldn't get excited about trying to beat a blog that was all about helping people in the deaf activist community. Come on everybody, let's beat the deaf people! Didn't sit right. Plus, the voting site got hacked. Oh well, there's always the Rhode Island blog awards... [The BOBS]
happy endings
UPDATE: Centex Offers New Home To Second Contest Winner
A representative from Centex just contacted us with the following statement:DENVER, Nov. 8, 2007 — The Denver division of Centex Homes has offered to give a house to Veronica Baca, one of the original finalists in a disputed home give-away contest in Denver. In addition, the Company has offered to provide furnishings for the home and payment for all reasonable legal fees that Mrs. Baca has incurred.More »
30,000 people will get free couches, mattresses, and other furniture if the Red Sox win the world series, thanks to a furniture store promotion back in March and April. Special Bonus: One of the worst, if not the worst, abuses of Photoshop ever perpetrated by a major network. [ABCNews]
accidental freebies
Cycle Store Screws Up Giveaway, Now There Are Ten Winners
A cycle shop in Mississippi accidentally gave away an ATV ten times in a row during a promotional contest, when all ten of the people who were randomly selected from over a thousand turned out to have working copies of the same key. The store's owner still doesn't know how it happened, but he held firm to the intent of the original promotion and gave away only one ATV, which has angered at least one non-winning winner. More »
popularity contests
What Retail Slump? Target And Lowe's Are Doing Just Fine
Target and Lowe's cheered everyone up by announcing that they're doing just fine in the "tough selling market" that Home Depot was so worried about. More »
typo in your favor
Honda Dealer Sends Out Scratch-Off Tickets Where Everyone Is a Winner
Here's a typo you don't see every day. A Honda dealer contracted the services of a direct mail marketing and promotions agency. The agency was supposed to send out 50,000 scratch-off tickets, one of which was the grand prize winner—entitling the customer to a cash prize of $1,000. More »
contests
Send Us Your Customer Service Calls And We'll Mock Their Flaws
Call centers of the world, we're gunning for your asses. More »
surveys
Fill Out Our Survey, Get Chance To Win iPod Shuffle
UPDATE: Survey max response number reached. Poll closed. Thanks everyone! More »
worst company in america
UPDATE 2: Worst Company In America 2007: Bracket Seeds
UPDATE 2: Changed brackets to look like basketball playoffs.UPDATE: Changed brackets around to accurately reflect initial voting. More »
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