I hope no one got taken

A month or so ago, I received a notecard regarding an upcoming 'designer contest' where each designer would submit a photo of one of their releases and $250L, and the design would be voted on for a week then the finalists would go thru a panel and the best design chosen by 'jury'. I returned the notecard with a politely worded "I'm not interested, please do not message me again regarding this" added. The sender then IM'd me, insisting it 'isn't a scam' (I never said it was), finally I had to mute her because she would just not shut up.
(A few days later, this showed up on a gossip blog site and most people there had pretty much the same opinon I did).

Well on the notecard was a blog link, so I decided to keep an eye on it. Right now the contest should be in full swing, with voting hot and heavy and designers set up all round (each participating was going to be given a booth space for the event). So I tp there, and nothing. Well, not nothing exactly...a pretty much empty shopping mall on damage enabled land was there.

I looked up the person's name in search and found her profile. It says "I came, and I went away" or something to that effect. Wonder if she managed to take anyone's L's with her?

The "It isn't a scam!" would have made me snort and say "Yeah, right...". If one had no suspicions about it before, this would have ticked me off.

That aside, I do not as a rule trust ANY form of competition where you have to pay to enter. A lot of people do, though. Unfortunately.

You are polite to even reply to that. I just ditch those offers and forget them.

And the various contests where residents vote are really no better, mostly popularity contests. And then some of those even charge to vote.

So True..

I got this note card as well.. Pisses me off when someone passes you something like this.. It's kinda like saying "here you throw this away".

Not to derail the thread, but I hate those photo contests. One of my bestfriends worried me to death about voting for him. 10L per vote. Ok no biggie I voted once. But EVERYDAY he wanted me to vote. Then he told me well if you pay more to vote that vote really counts more than 1 vote. I told him quit asking me. My sl brother did the same thing until I reminded him that I already voted. He said "oh, Sable I have so many friends I couldn't keep up with who already voted. So I just daily send the request out to everyone". He got a royal chewing out too.

I also find it irritating with folks that I haven't spoken to in months that are on my friendslist, all of sudden sends unsolicited TPs asking me to vote is downright rude. No im prior to the TP request saying something like "Sable, I know we haven't spoken in awhile and I'm in this contest. Would you please come vote for me?

Worse yet, my DJ/Host friends. One dj friend in particular kept TPing me while I was in the middle of hosting a wedding. Finally, I sent him an im asking him to stop as I am busy working and that was very inconsiderate of him.
Next time this happens, I am going to mute and/or defriend them.

Best friend or not, I would have told him that if he wants me to vote that desperately, he can cover my expenses, right?

If I got the note card, I don't remember. I tend to just discard them if it has an entry fee. The entry fee bit just seems more like a scam because we can't hold the "organizer" accountable if it is.

One of these days, I'm going to simply ask one of the organizers where the money goes if one does pay.

As for the pay to votes? I always ask those that ask me to vote, "What's in it for me?" Sounds selfish, but darn it, if I'm paying L$ to vote, then I want something in return that's worthwhile

I had something sort of similarish happen a few weeks ago. Someone who sells skyboxes IMed me to ask if I would furnish a skybox. The idea being that different furniture makers would each furnish a skybox and show how well one could do within the 512 parcel prim limit. She said that the displays would be judged by a panel and the winner would get a few thousand L$. I said I'm not interested in the contest but I'd do it anyway. I actually thought I was helping her to sell skyboxes (and maybe I was) - that was the only reason I agreed to it.

So I set my stuff up in the skybox I'd chosen at random and I set it to be in the competition. It was only then that, from a notecrad the system gave me, I found that there are 2 parts to the competition. The first part was what you've all been talking about in this thread - the public paying to vote. Only after that did the panel come into it.

I was annoyed because I really don't like those pay to vote things and I IMed her to remove me from the contest - something I couldn't do myself. I would leave the stuff there because I felt I'd be letting her down if I just removed it, which I could have done - and felt like doing. She put the argument that it would be confusing for people etc. etc., which I accepted and told her to leave it in. But I DID feel conned.

I don't think it was a money-making thing (except to sell skyboxes). I do believe the pay-to-vote money was for the prize, but I did feel conned, and I won't agree to anything like it again.