An Anger Management Session With Charlie Sheen Wouldn't Help This Situation
From time to time things happen in life that sometimes wreak havoc in each of our lives. When great things happen in life only for us to find out later on that it's all fake we have to figure out a way to manage our anger. This is one of those things in life. This is an extremely angry group of people to say the very least, and let me tell you how I became a member of this new growing radical group. There are at least 435 unhappy registered comments and counting so far on this company's web site. There are many more which were moderated and denied, which includes one in which I left. With these numbers I roughly figure that this accounts for less than 10% of the actual number of unsatisfied customers.
It all started out innocently enough one day early this year in the springtime. At the end of Easter I took advantage of an end of Easter clearance sale on candy at a local drug store. I purchased eight 2.83 ounce bags of peanut butter M&M's at a very good deal. Oh and by the way this mad movement is by no means about the good tasting chocolate. There just so happened to be a contest on those bags of peanut butter M&M's.
Now I realize that they were purchased at Easter time, but it took a little while to getting around to eating all of that chocolate candy. The first 5 bags all read sorry you are not a winner or something along those lines. We just recently did open the 6th bag, and to our surprise it congratulated us on being a winner. The deal was if you find all of the characters together and reunite them on the inside of the candy package, then you are a winner, and could win as much as $100.000 dollars. Yes our freshly opened package of M&M's proved to indeed be a genuine winner.
We went to the listed web site for all of the winners, and discovered that it was closed. The toll free number had also been changed, and directed us to a rental car company. I wasn't about to give up so the next step was to read all of the fine print, which of all things was printed in the very hard to read color of orange. I picked up a flashlight and a magnifying glass and proceeded to read more about this contest.
Suddenly my joy of winning was smashed to pieces by what I read next. The contest had expired last year sometime on the bag of M&M's which I just purchased this past Easter. Now the M&M's were fresh as could be, were not expired, and they didn't look at all as if they were old. They weren't crushed, broken, or were they partially melted from sitting around for over a year in a hot warehouse. So I asked myself, how could this be?
I finally did get through on a website about the contest, and what I read next was from a group of people who were just as unhappy as I was. Even long before the contest ended there were people complaining about how they couldn't redeem their winning wrappers. How they were unable to get through on the phone number which directed them else where. There were 435 comments which led all the way up to present day about how this contest was totally unfair, and new comments are constantly rolling in & being made on that web site.
So basically I'm now just one more member of this growing angry movement, who feels that they were done a great injustice by a big company, and that nothing can be done about. Easy come, and easy go. One minute you are in the running for $100,000 dollar prize, and the next minute your bubble is popped. Beware of contest, and there's no free rides or guarantees in life. This was a group of people who had to figure out how to manage their anger without Charlie Sheen's help, and that's the way the M&M bounces sometimes, and that's life. THE END
Have you ever won a contest, only to find out later that it was all a big hoax?
Comments
Yes this is a real mind blower. We have all gotten caught up in some of these too good to be true company gimmicks. Do not feel bad at all we have been there. Just keep entering contests and eventually you will something. Have a great rest of the week.
Matt
Interesting. I wonder how much business they lost when you refused to buy their products from then on?
The real losers are the companies as we can always find other ways to get our chocolate but they'll run out of customers!
So sorry this happened to you, I would be so upset especially the time you wasted. I heard about someone at work who did not know about the gray M&M contest, and he ate the gray one!
I used to spend time on publishers clearing house sweepstakes...now I don't even open them, I throw them out. I don't have the time to waste on contests like that. As sorry as I am, your hub was so interesting and I LOVED the title and the ending! One good thing that came out of it was the entertainment of this great hub! Blessings, Sparklea :)
I would be angry too. Especially after reading all that fine print which is almost impossible to read. My question is, why are the even selling candy that's a year old? I feel for you. Voted up and interesting.
Blessings to you.
I would have been bummed out. Anyway it was a fun read.
Sometimes it's just better to buy some Bingo packets. At least you have a chance to win on the day you're playing the game. But I'm not promoting gambling on the hubpages.
sad to hear this...a big let down for the patrons
I am sorry that this has happened to you. It sucks that you won and didn't get to claim the prize due to expiration date and the shadiness of the company.
Contests that conveniently "expire" when you're a winner. Warranties that don't actually provide what is promised. Catches that aren't revealed until you've provided all your contact information. Such is life today. I'm sorry you were disappointed but enjoyed your story!!
Hi, I am commenting because I actually won an M&Ms contest years ago and actually claimed the prize. They had a contest about finding the M&Ms that lost their color. Well the bag of M&Ms had all the colors except it had grey M&Ms mixed in with it. The prize wrapper said winner, but this was before you had to go online to verify if it was a winner or not with some serial number on the inside of a wrapper. Well, I took the wrapper to the grocery store, and the manager pondered over it, read the fine print, then proceeded to hand me a stack of FREE M&Ms candy coupons. It was free M&Ms for a year so yea I got 365 free coupons for M&Ms which I quickly used the same day with no issues anywhere.
That's too bad for your situation but like you have found out it will probably be a no win situation for you in the end since they have big legal teams and your wrapper has an expired contest date on it, even it they did ship the candy expired.
Two things, actually. First, retailers do sell candy that has been around a year or longer. Sad, but true.
Secondly, by posting this, you are getting the word out about how dishonorable the company is. That's a good starting place. I would blog about it, put it on Facebook, tell all my friends, etc.
Or . . . just let it go. Probably healthier.
These companies are in business to make money, not give it away, so getting them to honor a winner is like pulling teeth. Most of the time, I don't even bother looking.
Sounds like a huge letdown.
Theholestory I'm sorry this happened to you. I enter sweepstakes all the time and I know exactly how you feel. On any given day you can pick up an item at a store with a sweepstakes on it and the sweepstakes is expired. Once I purchased 5 pizzas just to get codes from the inside of the box. When I got them home and opened them up the codes were all expired. This is not a hoax, it just happens. Stores are not obligated at all to remove products just because a sweep has expired. I really hope you get a chance to win a real prize soon. I've won tons from sweepstakes.
Sending you some lucky dust. :)
This is sad, and just goes to show you how capitalism is evil. As Michael Moore said:
"Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil. You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that is good for all people and that something is democracy."~ Michael Moore
Of course, Moore doesn't really mean democracy, he means replaced with government. At least with government if they tell you you can have a chance to win something for free it never ends.
15