Brandi Thompson Brandi Thompson Photography She hosted a contest on Facebook, I entered and received the most votes but she accused me of cheating and did not furnish prize Plano, Texas
I entered a photography contest on Brandi Thompson's Facebook page. Whoever received the most votes was to win a photo shoot with Brandi Thompson. I entered my photo and read the rules and terms and saw that one particular rule was that no fake Facebook accounts may be created in order to obtain votes. I recruited my family and friends to vote for my photo and unbeknownst to me, a family member requested that members from a Facebook community page voted on my photo. By the end of the contest, in Brandi's words.. I "had a landslide more" votes. So you would assume I'd have won the contest and received my prize? No. Instead she accused me of cheating even though I worked very hard to win this contest. She stated that people from "Hong Kong and other countries" voted, which I honestly do not see why that is a problem. I then kindly responded back to her and copied and pasted various laws and regulations that I'd found online and she accused me of "attempting to threaten her" and stated that if I or any of my family members threatened her again, she will take appropriate action. How is emailing her in order to obtain a prize that I had legally won threatening? She had no such term or condition that Facebook community pages were against her rules. If she did not state that was a rule to begin with, why is she enforcing it? She then proceeded to post the situation on her Facebook page for all of her friends to read which is unbelievably unprofessional, and then she erased it after a few hours. I'm very saddened that she refused to acknowledge me as the winner and furnish my prize even though she admitted I had more votes than anyone else in the competition. Then accusing me of threatening her even though I did NOT is just ridiculous. Many of my friends and family "Liked" her page which was a condition of voting, and I feel used being that I had gotten over a hundred people to like her page, and she did not hold up her end of the deal, yet I spread the word of her business to all those people who currently still "Like" her page.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Brandi Thompson
Plano,Texas,
United States of America
Incomplete Statement
#2REBUTTAL Owner of company
Tue, February 21, 2012
I am the owner of this company. This person did not tell the complete story. She still claims that she didn't know that a family member was essentially 'buying' votes, which is fine. Here's some facts from my side.
First, since she claimed NOT to know, I offered her a second place prize. I took several hours and went over all the votes for the contest, looked at profile after profile (which, by the way, you could tell many of them were profiles ONLY used for voting, which are fake and by Facebook rules, illegal) and I offered to count around 60 votes, which was including some I felt were suspicious. I said this would put her in second place and she could have the second place prize. She did not accept this prize. I felt this was more than fair, yet she acts as if I did nothing for her.
I did post a sad post on my Facebook page that did NOT name any names, and I did remove it later. I was very upset about the whole thing, because this person DID try and threaten to shut my page down claiming I was breaking Facebook rules (I wasn't).
Here is an exact email I sent her:
Hey M,
Thanks so much for your response. It is unfortunate that well meaning family members can make the wrong choice in their eagerness to help out sometimes. Those particular screen shots were just a couple I found quickly, I didnt do extensive digging. I went ahead and took the time to look at each profile that voted on your entry. I was trying to be generous with what I found but there were around 60 confirmed profiles that came from vote exchange type links plus 20+ other suspicious looking votes (people in hong kong or other countries who do a lot of obvious voting or spamming). But, since you didnt know this was occurring I am not going to disqualify you from the competition. But, I also cant give you the win. Even if I say you have 60 valid votes, there was someone in the contest who had 100 valid votes. I am willing to offer
you a second place prize which is the $75 credit towards a session.
I really hope you and your family dont think Im trying to be mean here, Im really not. I just want it to be fair to everybody included!
-Brandi
I am happy to provide screen shots as well. I am sorry that this whole situation happened and that this person is so unhappy that I did not allow fake profile and "bought" votes to count toward her winning. I am an honest and hardworking person with hundreds of happy clients. I remained professional in all of my communication with this person as well. I stand by my decision in all aspects.