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8:18 pm
November 15, 2011
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Shannyn @FrugalBeautiful.com
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Hi again!
So, I entered an essay for a scholarship and was chosen as a finalist- yay! Problem is- the finalists were announced at about 5-6pm CST and it is currently 10:12 CST and some people already have 700+ votes… do you think this is spam-tastic or somehow a legit scholarship?
Here's the link: http://www.collegescholarships…..holarship/
I'm not sure what to do, it seems like they've handed out genuine scholarships in the past but I'm a bit confused at how "normal" bloggers could generate that many votes in well under 5 hrs…and if they did do it, HOW did they do it? (ha).
Thanks for your feedback!
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3:06 am
November 16, 2011
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Dana
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Could they have a large social media presence – tons of friends on Twitter or Facebook? I think that could account for a large number of votes in a short period of time…
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Dana
Site:
Gmail:
Twitter:
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5:54 am
November 16, 2011
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Sustainable PF
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My guess, cheating.
The contest is not counting votes via IP.
I cleared my cookies and temp internet files from my browser and I am able to vote every time I do this. I didn't, but this is how many votes could be garnered.
vote, clear cookies/temp files, refresh, vote – lather rinse repeat
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9:34 am
November 16, 2011
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Shannyn @FrugalBeautiful.com
| | Chicago, IL | |
| Member | posts 261 |
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I emailed them stating that and they insist they check IP and what you did "isn't possible." I call shenannigans and I think this is a big fat fraud. I'm so angry and I feel so stupid- I'm wondering if I should pull my blog out of the running.
One person with NINE RSS subscribers got over 322 votes in under 24 hours.
Another with an Alexa Rank of 2 million+ (granted he has a big twitter following of 3k) has 2,024 votes in under 24 hrs.
I feel like such an idiot, but I spent time before I entered researching the scholarship- last year the most votes any finalist received was around 1,000 (feasible) and the blogs all looked like normal blogs… UGH. I'm so angry.
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9:54 am
November 16, 2011
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Sustainable PF
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Unless they plan to discount votes based on IP, what I wrote is 100% plausible. I did it …
I was in the running for best Canadian blog from a major newspaper here and there was a similar issue – cookie based controls.
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10:24 am
November 16, 2011
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Shannyn @FrugalBeautiful.com
| | Chicago, IL | |
| Member | posts 261 |
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I realize it's plausible since I cleared my cache and was able to vote again. I reached out to another finalist who was involved last year (was a runner up) and he said that some people openly admitted to running codes and doing stuff like this, and yet the site does nothing about it? I would have to say they're in on it.
So…angry..not sure who I am mad at more, them or me.
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2:24 pm
November 16, 2011
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Jeff @ Sustainable Life Blog
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Dont be angry, just stop wasting time with it. Having your blood boil over this isnt worth it – there's plenty of other scholarships or ways to make money that wont make you angry :)
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3:40 pm
November 16, 2011
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Shannyn @FrugalBeautiful.com
| | Chicago, IL | |
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Thanks Jeff- ya I'm going to focus on making some money other ways on the blog :)
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8:04 pm
November 17, 2011
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PK @ DQYDJ
| | The Intersection of Politics, Economics and Personal Finance. | |
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I told you earlier it was probably just automated votes. Even with IP checking you could just bounce it through proxies anyway – captcha checking would be the best because then you'd have to at least have a person clicking through.
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