Is this serious? If so, I'm in!

Andreas-Lagoona · Post by **Andreas-Lagoona** » Tue Apr 01, 2003 4:50 pm

(EDIT: I changed my mind about this project. It may very well be serious, but I have decided not to enter the competition.)

I got this spam-mail telling me to check out a $25.000 music contest. See the official site here:

[removed link]

Can this be serious? Have anyone had anything to do with this site before? I will definitely enter the contest, since winning could make my dream of a minimoog voyager come true (yeah, let me hope!). But can this work, or is it just a fraud?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Andreas-Lagoona on 2003-04-02 14:39 ]</font>

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Wed Apr 02, 2003 3:32 am

donate the cash to some charity org you know about or support our developer's by registering some devices.
Complete junk imho.

Tom

siberiansun · Post by **siberiansun** » Wed Apr 02, 2003 3:51 am

well if the competition is as professional as the homepage... i wouldn't exactly dive in head first.

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Wed Apr 02, 2003 6:57 am

it's a classical scheme:
announce a big rewarding in money and fame
associate with charity ...at least a good deed...
charge as much as possible candidates might be willing to pay, but less than any legal action is worth for, or costs
try to trigger a snowball system by motivating the candidate to invite friends

All may even be a perfectly legal action and company:
Register as 'limited' (in germany that would be 25k bucks). Given there are 4000 idiots paying makes a total of 100k.
Burn 75k with virtual invoices of your friends and family members.
Go bankrupt - bingo !

the most annoying thing is that real charity efforts get a negative image due those kind of 'business' activities.

take care, tom

Andreas-Lagoona · Post by **Andreas-Lagoona** » Wed Apr 02, 2003 2:37 pm

Coming from the 1996-1999 tracking-scene where new compos showed up every week, I wouldn't be surprised at all if this was just a trick. I'm asking, because I haven't seen anything like this in during all the years that I have been releasing my music on the web. I've entered a LOT of compos, and several with cash prizes. But $25k? It sounds too good to be true, and everybody knows what that usually means... As for the website, it may still be serious. But it isn't beautiful. It is five years too late for that... (I am a webdesigner myself, since 1998)

You are probably right, and I am getting second thoughts about this. Now, I happen to be one of those guys who actually donate money for the good devices that I use, and I know that there are always better places to send the money too. But as you said, $25 wouldn't be very much to argue about...

Nah, I'll drop the whole thing...