funny
Reader Kevin sent us the following entry from his town's police dispatch log. It seems that the "Steal A Taco" promotion was causing some problems at the drive-thru window of his local Taco Bell.
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scams
Apparently, some group of geniuses has been calling people and pretending that they are from the FTC. They start out with some nonsense like "Hi, I’m calling from the Federal Trade Commission to tell you that you have won $250,000…"
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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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resolutions
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.
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happy endings
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.
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prizes
Veronica Baca thought she'd won a new home. She had been named a finalist in a contest. She pulled the lucky key that opened a prize door at halftime of a Broncos game. She toured the house. She agreed to let the company use her image in advertisements. She signed a form titled "Centex House Party Grand Prize Release." She was even in the local newspaper.
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coca cola
When I was in school, mysterious state-endorsed hucksters would burst through my classroom door from time to time with arms full of candy bars. These guys would then proceed to gang press us all as unpaid door-to-door candy salesmen. The candy bars (which were usually more peanut and Chinese newspaper than chocolate) were uniformly terrible; moreover, they cost like 5 bucks each. But these guys were smart: they kept us hustling with the promise of prizes for reaching impossible goals. Ten candy bars sold got you a pencil, but a million?
A robot dinosaur that transformed into a monster truck. Needless to say, the best prizes were logistically unattainable.
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Consumerist
A Minnesota child won a bear with a Viagra ad from a claw machine at a Red Robin restaurant. The bears were part of a Nascar effort to promote its sponsors.
worst company in america
