I very well may be a sucky customer

[xlr82xs]

I'm not sure if this falls more under unsupportable or general work, so please feel free to shift it if it belongs somewhere else.

Anyway, on to the thing that probably makes me a sucky customer.

My local paper is running a competition at the moment, send an email to a specified address with a specified subject and your details and go into the running to win ~$6k worth of home theater gear (now i REALLY would like to win this).

Me being me, i actually read (the so far only posted) terms and conditions. The one that makes me sucky is "One entry per email address".

I run my own personal (not related to my work in any way shape or form) email server, i have a catch-all account setup (for people not in the know that means if mail comes in addressed to an account which doesn't actually exist, it gets delivered to the catch-all). I dodged up a simple little bash script to send in 100-600 entries an hour (i thought adding a random timer would be a little nicer on their server) sending from accounts of the format "comp_entry_<number>@<my mail server>" where <number> gets incremented every time the script ticks over.

Does that make me a sucky customer ?

[Broomjockey]

Well, technically, no. As you're not a customer, you're an entrant. And I'm willing to bet that if they sat down and figured it out, they'd disqualify the whole batch of entries you've sent in. It's strictly within the rules, and tilts the odds in your favour in a major way. But I do have to say, I think it's sucky if you enter a couple thousand times, since you're not actually putting any effort in to entering. But my ethics are weird. Trust them at your own risk.

[Raieth]

My guess is that you will be disqualified.

[JustADude]

My guess is that you will be disqualified.

It's not against the rules. It says "One entry per email", not "one entry per person". It's rather sucky, yes, but it's a loophole they should've thought of before making the rules.
That being said, they'll probably find some way to bump xlr82xs anyway.

[xlr82xs]

Well, entries just closed a few minutes ago, I ended up getting 30,122 "your entry has been confirmed" style emails, the competition gets drawn later on in the day (it's just after midnight here at the moment) and the winer should be notified later in the week.

I'll let everyone know how i did
Unfortunately, they aren't (at the moment, maybe not ever) saying how many entries in total were received.

If anyone is interested, i can post the shell script i used ?

[chops]

A modern day Laslo Hollyfeld.

(I fear the youngins may miss the reference...)

[sms001]

A modern day Laslo Hollyfeld.

All through the thread I kept thinking "According to my calculations I should win 18.62 percent of the prizes..." Haven't seen Real Genius in a looong time. (Gries was great as Broots in The Pretender as well.)

xlr82xs:

I thought pretty seriously about doing exactly this earlier this week. There's a nice TV give-away going on and I've got a LOT of spare e-mail addresses. I don't quite know where it falls ethically. Is it that much different from playing the "How Many Beans In The Jar" game by buying a jar like it and filling it with beans and then counting them? Or entering something by postcard with five hundred of them because you have the time and postage?

Long story short, the paper isn't altruistic - they want to generate interest in whatever that promo is about. I don't see how you following their rules harms that. And since server space and domain name are pretty negligible costs and scripting tutorial books are available at the library, your fellow contestants could conceivably have all done the same, so it's not that unfair to them. (Heck, you might lose to somebody whose script was tighter and managed to generate 40,296 confirmations! )

It does seem dodgy, but I can't really figure out why. So I'll wish you good luck.

[myswtghst]

A modern day Laslo Hollyfeld.

(I fear the youngins may miss the reference...)

Hey now, I'm only 24, and that was one of my absolute favorite movies in college. I <3 Val Kilmer.

And honestly, I think as long as it falls within the rules, no harm, no foul. It may suck for other entrants, but you use what you've got available to you, and if your intellect and server are such that you can set up a sitch like this, more power to you, in my eyes. *shrugs* Let us know how it all turns out!

[JustADude]

It does seem dodgy, but I can't really figure out why. So I'll wish you good luck.

Because it violates the spirit of the arrangement:
"One entry per email" was meant as "One entry per person", since they went on the assumption that people would only have one email address apiece. It is, as I said before, a loophole the size of Alaska.

[daleduke17]

Yes, and the Kobayashi Maru was supposed to be a no-win scenario as well. :-p

[wagegoth]

Personally, I have four email addresses that I use regularly for different things. My husband has two or three.

[xlr82xs]

Sorry for the time it's taken for me to post an update to this, i've been waiting for them to actually announce the winners of the competition, they are (so far) over 8 days behind in determining a winner.


I think i broke it

[Broomjockey]

*snicker* That'd be kinda funny. But it might be a case of trying to contact the winner before hand or something, and they just can't get ahold of the person. I dunno. Anyway, good luck, hope they don't leave you hanging much longer.