My comments about Kroger's Response to the Design A Reusable Bag Contest Rigging

OK, here is the e-mail response from Kroger:

Dear Nathan:

Thank you for contacting The Kroger Co. I understand your concern about the "Create a Bag" contest. Please be assured that we have done our best to prevent any cheating in this contest. I am forwarding your comments for review and consideration.

If you have any further concerns or comments please feel free to contact us at 800.576.4377.


Sincerely,



Christie Metropulos
Consumer Affairs

Reference: 8939704



CUSTOMER COMMENTS:
I am patiently waiting for Kroger to issue a statement that I can put in my blog.

This is regarding what Kroger is planning to do about the cheating by all the top vote getters in the 2010 Design a Reusable Bag Contest. I already sent an e-mail to Candice Kendrick of the Consumer Affairs Division to make her aware of this cheating but I have heard nothing back.

I don't want to keep telling my blog readers that Kroger hasn't issued a statement and that they have not done anything to stop the cheating by all of the top vote getters. This is because there are many good Kroger employees and I don't want to hurt their reputation along with the Kroger Brands.

But if the cheating continues, I have no choice but to let people know that the contest is not fairly picking winners.

Please respond ASAP so I can put something in the Blog saying that Kroger will delete those entries that are cheating or that Kroger will eliminate the voting in this contest.

End of E-Mail Message

So Kroger is basically saying that they are probably aware of the cheating in the contest and they try to convince the people who know the cheating is going on like myself that they are doing something about it, but they really can't do anything about it.

I never have voted for myself in this contest before the other day because I usually feel that it doesn't feel right to vote for yourself. I would rather have other people vote for me because they actually liked my "Let's Talk Renewable, Not Trash" design. I changed my mind to see if it is possible to vote more than the limit of once per day.

So I voted once and then I couldn't vote again. However, I was easily able to vote 3 more times in less than an hour using the same computer by changing program settings or using other cheap programs. I could have kept voting but only stopped because I was just curious to see how easy it was to keep voting for the same bag. That is how the top half dozen bags got over 10,000 votes total so far each is through people voting over and over in the same day using these rather easy methods. These cheaters can easily vote several hundred votes in one day instead of the single vote they are allowed that day.

Even with a thing to keep computers from voting over and over again by making you enter a number that a computer can't copy, it wouldn't take someone long to type in the numbers and re-vote again just seconds later.

So now I am debating whether I should cheat like the rest since Kroger can't seem to do anything about the cheating. Because all they really need to do is just delete the top vote getters to send the message to the cheaters.

If only I could get 10,000 people to vote for my bag daily, then my design would leave those cheaters in the dust. But that will never happen! So we shall have to wait and see if Kroger really does do the right thing and stop the contest cheating.

I want to disclose that I will continue to shop at their Fred Meyer stores though, because I feel it would be wrong to punish the employees of Kroger for bad decisions made at Kroger's Corporate Headquarters in Ohio. The store employees have nothing to do with this contest situation.