You may have noticed that several VidOpp community members have raised the issue that after running their contest to the deadline and receiving a number of entries, BuzzFlash has “cancelled” the contest without awarding any prizes.
VidOpp wrote to them to resolve the issue:
You posted a video contest with a cash prize. You have apparently decided not to honor that commitment. This is exactly the opposite of your stance as an “anti-hypocrisy web community”. I am not an entrant in the contest, I run a website for videographers. BuzzFlash is being trashed on my site, and I would like to work with you to convince you that failing to award your prizes is a (reversible) bad decision. There has been talk of reporting you to the Better Business Bureau and FTC for fraudulent practices. I think we can resolve this easily. Rather than close the contest without a winner, you can extend the due date and reissue a call for entries. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help you do the right thing for your community and your brand.
BuzzFlash promptly responded with an angry message that they are standing by their decision to welch on their contest.
we stick by our statement:
this is ludicrous. we extended the contest twice and got a total of six entries. two of them were inappropriate, because they were pro-mccain. if there is so much trashing going on on your site, where were the entries that would have made this a contest? there is no issue of “fair business” practices, because anyone can run a contest as long as they don’t take money, and awards are at the discretion of the contest. we have not used anyone’s video entry because of the palty four eligible ones, none were good enough. how many you- tube visits are these so-called “great entries” receving. how much of this is from the pro-mccain people who entered. we have been fair, and at some point if this continues may pursue charges of slander against the one or two people who are continuing to slime buzzflash. it certainly can’t be more than six, because that was the total number of videos (including the two mccain ones). and a couple of those, if we recall, came in at the last hours of the second extended deadline!
we would be embarrased to post the entries. if there was so much interest how come we received only four eligible entries, and they were not of first class video quality.
please, spare me, there’s no there there.
we have posted a response on our you tube site and stand by it.
if anyone would like to tell me what buzzflash either monetarily gained by this or by the embarrasment of four entries that were eligible, i would like to know, because it cost us money to put all the time into it.
the pro-mccain people and the all the video people you claim are complaining would have been better off to have spent their time submitting enough entries so that we could have had something to pick from
people are more than welcome to make whatever “reports” they wish, all four of the entries (excluding the mccain)
we extended the contest twice, and a lot of good that did
this is so farcical, it’s beyond belief
you have to have a claim that somehow buzzflash benefitted monetarily to pursue legal recourse, and in this case the contest cost us money and no entry fees were charged. moreover, we never showed or used the less than handful of “entries” on any of our sites. we erased them from you tube so people wouldn’t be claiming that they were being used without permission.
so there is really nothing left to complain about. we are sorry people have nothing better to do but complain about a contest that their entries were not good enough to win. and then they complain that they are being demeaned. then don’t enter a contest if you are that sensitive! we are writers and get comments that trash our columns all the time.
if this is how people want to waste their time, that’s their choice. remember, we lost money on this. this is not a scam. it’s unfortunate that there were fewer entries than pallbearers — and that they were generally too short and not of winning quality. but we are done with this.
if people who wouldn’t win no matter how many entries there were want to continue whining, that is their choice. we have an election to win. i guess we learned from this too. but we can’t spend time indulging six or less fragile egos. the future of democracy is at stake.
we are totally transparent, that is why we are writing this response.
this has cost us in expenses, time and our image. it’s not something we anticipated, but we aren’t going to get sidetracked from helping obama win the election.
So we have seen what reputable sites like OurStage.com do when faced with a disappointing contest response: they take responsibility and pay out prizes. And now we have seen what happens when a site without the same sense of honor and responsibility does when faced with the same situation: they blame the contestants and withhold promised awards. Ourstage paid out $5000, BuzzFlash won’t pay their $500 prize.
What do you think of that?
I am completely digusted with them. As a vidopp frequenter I know that I pride my VidOpp and think that they are completely insane! They kind of remind me of geniusrocket and how they always let their RFB’s get cancelled and have all of their customers extremely pissed that they wouldn’t even write just one letter like VidOpp (who is passionately dedicated to their customers) would do. Thank you VidOpp, you never let me down!
unlike sanctimonious Douglas who makes money from posting video contests, and apparently a good living, buzzflash lost money from its good faith effort. Douglas can trash other people, because he has money in the bank from making this is a BUSINESS. BuzzFlash lost money from the contest. as For Ourstage, the offer a MONTHLY grand prize of $5,000 to stimulate BUSINESS, and we wonder if they advertise on Doug’s Site? do you think?
We had nothing to gain from the contest except posting videos that could help obama win. Doug makes money from video contests; buzzflash lost money. Doug can afford to be sanctimonious.
HAHA! I love VidOpp.
What’s with BuzzFlash.com? Oh my gosh. It sounds like a hyper-emotional person sat down and shot off an email without proofreading it. And what’s with the anti-McCain remarks? Look at their contest criteria again… “…four years of President McCain…” they mention. Obama OR McCain, right? Either or?
And they’re an “anti-hypocrisy web community?” HAHA!
I certainly don’t agree with McCain a full 100%, but this makes me question the emotional stability of Obama supporters (at least a few… not meaning to generalize!). What an embarrassment to the Obama campaign.
The BuzzFlash ideology: Run by emotions. Justifying what feels good, not what’s right. Always being victimized.
(I refuse to endorse any of these sentiments)
I bet their response to the BBB will be: “WAAA!”
Thank you very, very much VidOpp, and my sympathies to those who invested in this contest. (“But the entries weren’t what we expected! WAAA!”)
Haha.
-Beau
P.s. Oh my gosh! I just checked out their website! So much dripping, seething hatred. Dang!
Thank you for looking into this Vidopp!
I entered this Buzzflash contest and am now almost convinced they planned to do this since the beginning.
There were a total of 8 entries, 2 were pro-McCain but the rules did say that you can do either Obama or McCain.
As far as lack of entries (Honestly, I think 8 entries is really not that bad), Buzzflash is to blame. It is their fault for not putting time into marketing the contest. Why are they blaming us who entered the contest for this?
Its funny how fast Buzzflash deleted their contest announcement video on YouTube after the contest ended and they announced no prizes will be given out…. On the video comments, they berated us who entered, laughed about not actually giving out the prizes, and told us to go get more people to make videos for them for free.
After Buzzflash told everyone that their videos were now Buzzflash’s property (since we agreed with the rules in their contest which stated that all entries became their property) the majority of us deleted our entries in hope that Buzzflash wouldnt be able to steal them from us but 2 people did leave up their entries on Youtube so if you want to see the “awful” video entries in this contest then you can see two here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGUGT8m43bA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnK3YyXmvIM
I do believe that many of the entries were good. I would be happy to re-upload mine for you guys to see too and I can talk to the other people who entered into uploading theirs again too.
If they were so bad why did buzzflash threaten us by saying they now own the rights to our videos? Why would they even want them if this was true?
What a sad piece of doo-doo Buzzflash is. I also entered the contest and am extremely disappointed in the way Buzzflash handled this. I think its obvious that they planned to do this from the very beginning. I mean they even said that the only way they’d decide to give the prizes away is if they recieved 100+ entries. What video contest gets that kind of entries? Nestle. T-Mobile, etc.. The ones that spend thousands on promoting their contests. Buzzflash didnt promote their contest at all. They are lucky that they recieved the amount of entries that they did. And those videos above are just 2 of the 8 entries they recieved. There were good videos entered. The fact that Buzzflash is saying there was not is a bunch of lies.
Hahaha. This is indeed farcical. Any reputable organization would pay the mere $500 prize.
maybe all they need to do next time is add one line to their contest rules.
“The contest will be canceled if their are not at least 50 entries.”
I am sure people don’t understand what
goes into making even the simplest video.
slamming someones entry is lame and
bf should never have offered the contest,
they should reward the prize even if
they got one entry!
By the way timex had a contest over the summer, has anyone got any of the prizes!