Do You Own America's Most Pampered Pup?
Edited to Add: A number of people have reported that there were irregularities in the selection of last year's grand prize winner for this contest. I contacted the sponsors to ask for their side of the story, but they did not respond. I have removed the link to the sweepstake because I cannot be sure that it is worth recommending.
ThePamperedPup is holding a contest to find the most pampered dog in America. This is a combination photo/essay contest. To win, you need to take a picture that shows just how pampered your pup is and then write a clever bio describing your dog. Each month, a winner will be chosen by popular vote. The monthly winners receive a pampering prize package, including a $100 PamperedPup gift certificate and a subscription to Wag Magazine. Monthly winners are also advanced as finalists for the grand prize, a VIP trip for your pup and its two favorite humans to visit Palm Beach, FL in style, including first class plane tickets, hotel, spa treatments, pet grooming, and more. The total value of the grand prize trip is $10,000.
All dog owners who reside in North America and who are aged 18 and above are welcome to enter. One entry per household per contest per year. This is an ongoing contest.
Comments
This company has their contest rigged. The dog that won the first year of this contest cheated and they gave it the grand prize. This dog hacked into the voting system to win. The dog that should have won had submitted a video and everything and the dog that won had nothing. It was an outrage that many of us witnessed yet the Pampered Pup allowed it to happen. It was obviously rigged and I will NEVER SHOP AT THE PAMPERED PUP AGAIN!
I agree that this contest appeared to be rigged. The only explanation I have for the way this contest was rigged was through a proxy server. Seems that way to me anyway. Feel bad for the people who should have won tho as they made a big effort and deserved to win.
The Pampered Pup are better known as THE TAMPERED PUP because of their bad reputation over the cheating that was allowed in contest. They did indeed allow a cheat to win. Perhaps they know each other? Perhaps proxy servers were involved. Whatever happened they should be ashamed of themselves.
Afro Ken’s Pampered Pup video is so funny and cute. I watch it on Dogster whenever I need a laugh. So sad that he didn’t win. Shame on Phoebe’s humans for cheating. They did not deserve to win.
So the company would not respond to the allegations that the contest was rigged? Hmmm It is very odd. I am convinced they had this contest rigged. It was crazy how they let that dog get so many points in so little time. A big con.
To be fair, not responding doesn’t mean that they are guilty. They could have not gotten the email, or not recognized my site, or just been tired of defending their contest. However, it seemed prudent to remove the link since so many people are suspicious of it, and there was no solid information to say that the sweep was all right.
They aren’t giving away that huge grand prize anymore just have a gift certificate now. They have a bad rep
Yeah, that’s why I removed the contest link and entry information from the site. I’m glad that people who look for information about the contest can read the comments from people who have had bad experiences from this post, however.
As the owner of The Pampered Pup, I gladly have offered this honest explanation to anyone that cared enough to reach me directly.
Personally, I think it’s sad that we have spent years building our business and the reputation of our brand, and without having access to details that went any further than ignorant suspicion, there are people out there that so carelessly would degrade our hard earned reputation on a whim, and over an on-line dog contest no less.
Neverless, an explanation…
During the voting that occured for the finalists, our programmers worked tirelessly for 30-31 days investigating data that came through in a constant stream. We ended up dedicating 10-12 hours per day on this task alone and removed tens of thousands of questionable votes. You have no idea the expense that this created.
The Contest winner from the first year, her husband was an executive with The PGA of America. He had access to an email list that contained hundreds of thousands of addresses. I believe it was ten days prior to the conclusion of the contest that a mass email went out to all the addresses contained in that list. We fully investigated the tens of thousands of votes that came pouring in as a result, and determined that there was in fact no cheating that occured.
During the second year of the contest it was determined that at one point there was considerable cheating that occured and after several unheeded warnings one entry was removed from the contest entirely (at her request) while all other contestants received stern warnings across the board.
It was never our intention for a fun, enjoyable aspect of our website to become such an anger inspiring topic. Since then, we have spent hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars redesigning our contest in an effort to clean up any possible forms of deception or tampering.
If you have any further questions, feel free to contact me directly at our West Palm Beach location.
Have a Pawsitively Palm Beach Day.
The Pampered Pup.com
Thank you for your response. I appreciate hearing about both sides of the story.
As for contacting ThePamperedPup directly, I sent this email to the contact email listed on your site, info@thepamperedpup.com, on June 10, 2007 asking for your input:
“My name is Sandra Grauschopf, and I am a journalist who runs the About.com Contests and Sweepstakes section. About.com is one of the internet’s largest websites, with over 30 million visitors each month. A few weeks ago, I featured your Pampered Pup contest on my website’s blog: http://contests.about.com/b/a/000013.htm
Since then, I’ve had quite a few users contact me about irregularities with last year’s grand prize contest winner. Allegations have been made that the grand prize winner did not fulfill the contest guidelines, or that he or she cheated the system to receive the prize.
I was wondering if you would like to comment either on these allegations or on the security of your current contest. If so, I’d be glad to consider posting your response on my website, which would give you a platform to counter these allegations without running the risk of a “flame war” by jumping into the comments. Many of my readers are concerned about taking the time to enter your sweepstake if they feel they have no legitimate chance of winning, and I’d like to be able to cover both sides of the story.
Thank you for running such a fun contest, and I look forward to hearing from you.”
It was after I didn’t receive a response that I removed the link to your contest.
I’m sorry to hear that your first contest was so frustrating, and I hope that you are enjoying much more success with your contests now. Good luck!
Sandra
I wouldn’t waste my time with this contest. I know Derek is a bare faced liar. He deserves the bad reputation that his business has gotten.