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Commander Neyo Exclusive Bust Premiere Guild Raffle Flawed?
— July 9, 2007 Leave a Comment
More than a week after the premiere guild raffle for the Commander Neyo Blister Exclusive bust was closed, it appears that the way that Gentle Giant handled the selection of the raffle winners was flawed. I say that the raffle appears to be flawed meaning the winners were not chosen randomly. Instead, the winners of the raffle appear to have been chosen based on zip code.
Forum members noticed after several premiere guild members started reporting whether or not they won the raffle, that a pattern begin to emerge. Readers saw that only members that lived in the northeastern states won the Neyo bust after entering the raffle. Last I read about 50 members reported winning the bust, all within the same few states. Here is a list of the states with corresponding zip codes.
00100 - 00999 = Foreign Countries
01001 - 02791 = MA
02801 - 02940 = RI
03031 - 03897 = NH
03901 - 04992 = ME
05001 - 05907 = VT
06001 - 06928 = CT
07001 - 08989 = NJ
10000 - 14975 = NY
17501 - 19640 = PA
The only exception found was one winner who lived in Virginia. In addition, eBay auctions for Neyo were checked. Except for those originating in Japan, all the Neyo auctions on eBay were from the above listed states.
Gentle Giant has not yet released any official statement about this situation. But many premiere guild members upset because if this is true then the raffle was not random. It is likely we will never know the facts about the entire situation due to Gentle Giant’s silence.
To sum it up, this makes Gentle Giant look bad. Ignoring the situation makes them look even worse. However, ignoring fan’s complaints seems to be their standard public relations strategy. I am baffled as to why any company would behave this way. It is likely due to the fact that their bottom line is not being hurt yet. I feel that Gentle Giant will never make any changes unless this happens.
Update: GG employee Jewel responded in their blog comments that the raffles winners are sorted by certain criteria before they are selected proving they are not random. Read the full post here.
Full Disclosure: I am a Gentle Giant Premiere Guild member.
