Tim thought he was entering an innocent giveaway at his local Subway in Warrenton, Virginia earlier this month. Nope. It was just timeshare bait. We wish the Subway would have known better than to allow the dropbox in their store to begin with, but after reading Tim’s story you’ll know what to watch out for should you run into a similar contest.
contests
On The Border Asks: Do You Love Me?
By 5.31.09
Um, we’re a little sketched out by a survey question from the Mexican restaurant On The Border asking customers to agree or disagree with the statement: “I love On The Border.” Sure, sometimes we LOVE Mexican food, but we don’t really love any restaurant. It’s just too large a step to take with an eatery, you know? Reader Max is equally confused…
Congratulations! You Just Won A Scam!
By 5.7.09
Is there anything scammers won’t try in their attempts to disguise advance fee fraud? Nope. Chelsea and her husband just found out that OMG THEY JUST WON 350K!!!1! from the Gaming Association of America. They’ll be receiving their check shortly, but in the meantime the GAA has sent them a much smaller check for about $5,000 to cover any fees associated with the prize. All they need to do is contact the “non-government service tax agent (GST)” to take care of cashing and handing over that $5k, and they’ll be swimming with hookers in champagne-filled pools.
Consumerist Nominated For Best Blog
By 1.6.09
That’s right, despite having its budget slashed and being put up for sale, Consumerist still rocked 2008 with a bunch of cool and/or ridiculously awesome posts, and now we’re in the running for the Best Blog in the 2008 Weblog Awards. You can cast your vote here. Frankly, we haven’t even heard of some of the competitors. Gawk-er? What is that, a peeping tom site? Boing boing? Who names this stuff?
Can You Finish The 50 Pound Burger And Win $1,000?
By 12.1.08
ABCNews took a look at “Free if you can finish it” challenges all over the US — and even sent the reporter to attempt one — with the help of a championship competitive eater. So, was the 50-pounder a bargain?
Leading Hotels Still Kinda Committed To Selling 5-Star Rooms For $19.28 Per Night
By 10.12.08
The Leading Hotels of the World want you to know they are still committed to offering 6,000 five-star hotel rooms for $19.28. The contest, originally conceived as a way to honor the association’s 1928 formation, is proving ironically successful, fusing a modern giveaway with 1928 technology. That whole email do-over idea? Silly! Forget it even existed. The group has gone and hired themselves some internet sherpas to help run the contest, and here’s what they’ve come up with….
Write Carmax Car Review, Get Chance To Win $250 Gas Card
By 10.7.08
You can enter to win a chance for a $250 gas card by submitting a review of your car to CarMax, an online used-car retailer. 8 winners will be chosen over 8 weeks, and of those people submitting a review with a picture, an additional $300 gas card winner will be chosen. Even if it’s a long shot, who couldn’t use even just a possible free gas card? Plus, writing words is fun. [CarMax]
3M Steals Viral Image Idea To Avoid Licensing It
By 9.16.08
There is probably nothing more pathetic in the world of marketing than watching a big corporation try to do something “viral”—usually they end up looking like Elaine dancing. But sometimes, they’re so cynical and soulless about it that they don’t just come across as incompetent, but as exploitative cheapskates as well. In 3M’s case, they wouldn’t pay $2,000 to license a well-known photo with its own viral history, and instead recreated a fake version of it to save a grand. We guess they’re just hoping none of the sites and communities that made the photo popular in the first place will notice. Oh wait, this is supposed to be viral or something…
Man Wins $25k But Never Receives The Money
By 7.25.08
Back in January, Herbert Hawks made a hole-in-one on a golf simulator at the Maryland State Fairgrounds, and he won $25,000. (You can watch the winning shot here.) WBAL TV reports that as of late July he has yet to see the prize money, and every person or company the TV station has contacted passes the blame on to someone else. At the bottom of the list is Golf Marketing Worldwide, a company that insures hole-in-one contests and has a history of not paying out on contests and/or doing business in states where the company doesn’t have a license.
This Dunkin' Donuts Game Piece Is Sufficiently Waterproof
By 6.27.08
Reader JoeTan says this is his 6th attempt at removing a Dunkin’ Donuts game piece from his iced coffee and the results, shown above, have all been identical. Mush.
Worst Company In America 2008: Round 2 Bracket
By 5.12.08
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…
Fill Out Our Survey, Enter Drawing For $300 AMEX Card
By 4.16.08
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.
Lawsuit Says Verizon's Text Message TV Show Contests Are "Illegal Gambling"
By 3.29.08
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.”
Tell The Best Personal Finance Horror Story To Mint, Have Your Credit Card Balance Paid Off
By 2.5.08
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).
Gibson Awards Prize To Artist As Promised!
By 1.31.08
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.
Gibson Screws Musician Out Of $10,000 Worth Of Equipment
By 1.25.08
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.”
By 12.13.07
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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!)
Didn't Win BOBs
By 11.23.07
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]
