We Won An iPhoney
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With all the blog contests going around, sooner or later we had to get lucky and win something instead of giving out free cash prizes ourselves all the time. So guess what? We entered an iPhoney contest way back on the 14th of July because we wanted to win an iPhone. The blog owner seemed to have managed to get his hands on 2 iPhones and judging by the original contest post, he probably won them in some myspace contest. Since he’s not based in the US it’d be silly for him to go out and just buy two of them because they’re unusable anywhere else! Anyway, we just received an email this morning on out blackberry that said to check out the latest post which declared the winner.
Falling out of bed, rushing to the macbook to get online and see if we had really won that fantastic iPhone, this is what the post had to say:
JohnCow, you’re the winner of my contest,
sadly not enough people registered themselves so I’m forced to withdrawn from my original award, and give you the agreed alternative, but have no fear – I will be using it for a better contest in the very near future.
We never agreed to any alternative? Just because a contest isn’t going as well as you’d hope, doesn’t mean you should just drop the prize and offer something else. Just imagine us telling whoever wins the $500 cash competition that it didn’t go as well as we’d like and we’re deciding to keep $400 for ourselves. We’d end up on someones BBQ for sure!
Yeah, so apparently 3 weeks into the contest the rules got slightly changed and a minimum amount of 30 contestants was needed to actually win the iPhone. Anything under 30 entries and the winner would just get $100 instead. Guess what? The target of 30 was a just a couple of entries short. yay. We didn’t sign up for $100 and we’re feeling let down. Kinda reminds us of what a certain Ashwin Khanna did a few weeks ago.
Dear Rea Maor, if you read this, please feel free to keep or give away the $100 to someone else that entered or perhaps donate it to charity because we signed up for an iPhone contest.
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decision to pull the rug out of the winner’s feet. He was still being nice with his words, I say “feeling cheated” would be more appropriate for this sorry episode. While the big beef is fuming mad, his herd is having a field day condemning thisiPhoney contest. Does this smell of a familiar scam, which kind of remind us of a recent con-job-contest?
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That’s ridiculous. Why make a limit like that? He was probably expecting more ad clicks or some other form of compensation to justify giving away such an expensive prize. That’s the old bait n switch routine at work for you. It’s one way to lose your credibility.
No one gives free presents, all those who are giving away free things (including me) are expecting to get Links or RSS readers or whatever their Goals are.
I thought to myself that Google PR update is coming and I could use incoming links, and I’ve already have those two useless gadgets so why not putting them to use… Cow can confirm that after the initial 3 weeks of the contest there were hardly any people, in fact without Cow’s help I wouldn’t even reached 5 users (and I was nice enough to thank him for that). So he knew about this rule, and that’s why he tried to push the contest up.
So because you’re missing out on 5 links from 5 entries you lower the prize with $500?
Yes we knew that you added this into the competition 3 weeks later, in fact, we asked you what was up with that and looking at the screenshot above, you said not to worry. Guess we should have worried.
As for the money, feel free to give it to someone else that entered.
He should only give away what he can afford.
We understand that, but I don’t he’d start an iPhone contest without having the iPhone ready to be given away, do you?!
On a totally irrelevant side note, my router hates John Chow… You can read about it here… It’s so ****ed up, I had to write a post about it LOL
Well, I’m really sorry that you’re not happy about the contest.
I’ve offered you the money and when you said you don’t want it
I offered to donate it in your name, as a cow I’m sure you could have donated it to a pet shelter or any other none profit organization – I’ve also told you that you’ll have free pass to the next contest.
There’s no need to be mad, I’m sure that if you won’t change your
Mind by tonight as agreed upon, someone else would be very happy.
That’s like giving a kid a bag of candy and then taking it back and giving him one piece.
If 30 entries was required, you should have stated that at the beginning of the contest. The sad part is (for you), is that you just lost MORE traffic and potential readers thanks to your greed and selfishness. Congratulations.
First you dont change the rules a month into the contest, if you didnt have the foresight of what the contest will bring thats the contest runners fault.
Second, you should never cheat a blogger especially a pretty popular one, that just nullifies any benefits you could have gotten from running a contest.
Finally,dont you think the benefit of the cow winning an iphone from you is more than a few more contest entries?
Oh well, maybe you will change your mind and deliver the promised iPhone after all
If he has any kind of good conscience he will…assuming he HAS the iphone.
I sure hope he does the right thing, and take this contest as one big lesson on how to conduct a contest properly.
I’m running this content where the winner will get $1000, all you have to do is write about how great I am (at least 200 words ).
I’m reserving the right to change the prize to some of my special blue belly button fluff if I don’t get 100,000 entries (and don’t make at least $1000 by running the contest)
Welcome to the world wide web where things are not always what they seem. We’ve got hackers, spammers, scammers, and anonymous proxy surfers.
Unless I’ve had a history of honest dealing with a particular person or site, I wouldn’t expect too much from such offers.
No need to get your cow udders all in a twist over this.
-Raymond
On the contrary, someone’s gotta put his or her hoof down over these scammy blogger contests. So I’ve decided to take on the challenge. I’ll be entering every U.S.-hosted blogger contest I can and wait until one of them blatantly breaks the law. Then I’ll make an example out of them by nailing them with the full power of state and Federal laws dictating how sweepstakes and contests must be run.
That sucks Mr. Cow. All these iPhoney’s everywhere.
at least you won a PS3 bob : http://www.darin.cc/blog/free-nintendo-wii-and-free-playstation-3-winners/
Dang Mr. Cow, you must have entered alot of contests or are one lucky bovine.
Congratulations Mr. Cow.
That sucks,
If you start a competition, you can’t change the rules half way through, otherwise all you do is damage what you have built with your blog.
On a side note, we will be having a very interesting competition on our blog to celebrate the launch of our new theme, and I gurantee that the prize will be awarded whether we get 1 or 1000 entries, and the rules will be set out clearly from the start.
Who knows a may even order a review from the Mad Moos
haha it sucks big time huh? that’s why I am a bit reluctant to enter any blogging contest because some of the owner will name a friend as a winner or just a pure scams..
seems like there are more than 30 people in the contest according to pingback and comments, I didn’t count though
Hmm, looks like the contest host is in Israel, so it’d be hard pursuing legal action. If he were in the U.S. or wherever the Cow’s pastures are located, such a contest rule change would be illegal. I’ve found that almost all blogger contests violate at least one U.S. law (at least those hosted in the U.S. anyway). Seriously people, don’t host contests on your blog unless you know your contest and sweepstakes law.
It’s similar to yours first comment contest. In original you promise 50% of ads money to user with most comments, and there was line something like this: “if we make like john chow 12000$, you will get 6000$” but at end of month you shared just adsense money to winner, not all money you earned on your blog => “if we make like john chow 12000$, you will get 6000$” and you probably know john chow earned that 12000$ from not just adsense, there was kontera, review and other ads money in that 12000$……
So why now you ask Iphone when you are the same? At first you “give” half money and at end you give half money of “nothing”
We’ve always said half of the ad revenue. not half of all our earnings. And we never said “If we make $12,000 like John Chow, you will get $6000″. We made an example which we believe was 1200 and 600.
Yes but you used line (something like this): “if we make like john chow 12000$ last month, you will get 6000$”
I think you know he earned that money not just from ad revenue…
Spiderpig what could you possibly spend $6,000 on?
I am just kidding Cow to share more money with commentators
Contests are starting to suck now. I’m running one now and I don’t think I will ever run one again ‘cos I don’t think people have any faith in them any more.
Regardless, there is $100 in my Paypal that someone will get. Just sucks I don’t have any iPhones or anything. I do have an electric fan but I need it.
I agree…People who screw other people like that make the rest of us honest people look bad. I just finished one contest and was debating on another but, I just don’t know….
Man, I hope this doesn’t give blog contests a bad name. I just dropped a bit of money at Dragon Con to buy a couple of cool prizes to give away on my anime blog.
Well, they’re cool if you’re a fan of Fullmetal Alchemist. 2 DVDs, 1 regular 1 special edition, and a music CD by the voice actor that plays Ed. All three are autographed by the actor playing Ed.
It’s no iPhone, but it’s appropriate to the blog.
Welcome Back!
If you dont want to give away the big prize unless a certain something happens you should be very clearly. For example Ben of bloggingexperiment recent contest, he was very clear from the start if I have x subscribers you get prize A, if y sign up you ge A and B, the prizes shouldgo from small to big not big to small.
LOL I understood the message you were trying to convey but had difficulty following along what you were writing (if that made any sense).
Wow, that is not how you run a contest at all. Hopefully he learns from this mistake and does better if he ever decides to run a contest.
Hopefully no one ever join his contest again.
Also if he wanted 30 entries he should have advertised it more, emailing more of the bigger blogs, commenting, and sending a message to his bloglog members.
[...] blog if they find your trackback interesting. I usually get visitors from John Chow dot com and JohnCow this [...]
If 30 entries was required, he should have stated that at the beginning of the contest!!
Shame!Shame!Shame!Shame!
you been tagged at abobaday
bob on, my friend.
That site is now on my blacklist.
maybe i will start a contest that offer $50,000 to the winner IF only I got 50K entries..hahahahhaha
Make it one per site or I will spam your site with trackbacks
Wow, that’s really lame. Nothing like changing the rules 3 weeks in if things aren’t going your way.
What a dud!!! There goes his online credibility. I can’t believe he choose to keep something which he can’t even use, over his credibility!
Mr Cow, at least you won the PS3 from Darin.cc! You lucky Son-of-a-Cow!
I wonder if John (Bob) will contest off the PS3
Hope it’ll fit next to our Wii and XBOX360!
Interesting Google ad from Kumiko. Thoughts, anyone?
Didn’t catch it, what did it say?
She should be making that in her sleep by now. Her quest for cash has been online nearly a year now.
Are we to assume that she dreamt this whole scenario? Last night I met Pete Sampras in my sleep. He was a nice guy.
I remember reading that it took her six months to reach her $1000 target. You’re doing a hell of a job for being a new blog Mr. Cow ^_^
What a way to run a contest.
Now that is really bad. Why do people scam like this? They forget that they are loosing their authoriy and respect in the blogosphere.
It’s such a shame that more and more people are starting these scam contests and the unknowing trusting bloggers believe in them and then get screwed. If you knew your blog didn’t have the scope or range to make it to the 30 entries, then why would you give away such an extravagant prize? He should’ve started small, like that guy giving away the Barry Bonds card and the video game. I didn’t win either, but I’ve subscribed to his feed, and his credibility isn’t shot.
I’m in agreement with Kumiko here, blacklisted another one!
[...] any influence had won the competition then Rea Maor’s reputation would still be in tact, but John Cow dedicated a whole post to his not winning the iPhone, and people were pretty pissed. Kumiko from Cash Quests even went so [...]
Dang, that really sucks. Contests are a hit and miss these days. You never know what your gonna end up with. If he couldn’t afford to give away the iPhone if the contest failed, than he should have considered that at the start. Also, if your giving away an iPhone, certainly you should have enough money or something to promote your contest. You can’t just “wait” for people to find your contest. You need to sell your contest!
Waiting to hear a better outcome for this…
[...] more than linkbait and switch tactics. In one the prize was supposed to be an iPhone, but as it happens the whole thing turned out to be an “iphoney”. In the second one, well let’s just say it stunk so bad that Contest Blogger had picked up [...]
I was actually writing a post to enter the contest but it was literally minutes too late to be counted.
The SMART thing to do would be to give the iPhone to John Cow…it’s lucky for Rea that John Cow was the one who won it, rather than some nobody blogger who has 3 posts (me?) that won’t bring any new readers, links or traffic.
There may be time to salvage this…but Rea is on Kumiko’s blacklist…it may also be too late!
Salvage smalvage… Once the damaging comment has been made, little can be done to salvage it. The best you can do is try to fix it as best as you can but the like everything else, only time will fix all damage.
I think it would have been better if someone else would have one. That person would probably not have cared and would have likely been grateful for 100 bucks. I don’t see any attempt at salvage so far.
Ouch… Sorry man.
Hahahaha. I… phoney. I only just got it. How did you think of that one. That’s great.
Atleast you got it and didn’t read that somebody else got it in their comment. /doh
LOL
[...] a brand new in the box PS3 with 5 HD-DVDs! We might have had our bike stolen earlier this week and won an iphoney, but this just made our month! As soon as it’s in, we’ll make a couple of pictures to [...]
[...] main page instead of to the landing page which it should have been! Like he’d care if we got screwed out of an iPhone or that our bike got stolen! He wants money! So what does he do? Leave our blog to never return [...]
you can give me the $100 if you don’t want it cow..hahahaha I can buy lots of domain with it..
[...] Personally I think the best prize is always cash! Hard cold cash. The next best thing is a Nintendo Wii. If you offer USD100 at the beginning of the contest, you should honor your promise and give it although there are only 5 entrants received at the end of the day! Don’t say that due to the low entry for this contest, then you lowered the winning prize. That is daylight robbery and people will hate and write bad things about your blog. But if you like the controversies then do it! Good example is about the Cow getting an i-Phoney. [...]
If you say you’re going to do something, do it. A rep is hard to repair..
at least you won a PS3 bob : http://www.darin.cc/blog/free-nintendo-wii-and-...
To be honest, I think the publicity it would have generated by giving the phone to Cow would have been better than what has happened by not giving it.
I agree with Angel, and while many bloggers out there do contests to generate some publicity, to increase their RSS readers, etc etc… Many don’t set new rules after the contest started already and they surely don’t change the prize just because they felt it didn’t meet their standards. I think you would have benefited more if you had just honored the iPhone giveaway.
Yeah, it is the internet and anyone can say anything,also I never saw the blog before this post so I do not know if he lies about stuff.
Yeah, it could just be one big linkbait scam, but I’ll try to give him the benefit of the doubt.
I think Mr. Cow is correct here. Though I too though he is going to share half of the total revenue, after reading the terms I understood he clearly said ad revenue. Most of his revenue is from reviews and not from ads.
Why the hell do you put the dollar sign after the dollar amount instead of in front (the way it’s suppose to be e.g. Angel got it right). I never understood why people do that.
He’s a spiderpig.
I dreamt of a new router… oh wait, that wasn’t a dream lmao
Haha NICE. I actually have an XBox 360 and Wii currently too!
Must be nice..we have neither. My kids sold theirs so they could buy themselves a shotgun to go dove and quail hunting.