The Beano merges..UPDATE its not a merge!!!!!!!!!!

[swirlythingy]

POST REMOVED and is being reviewed

[Digifiend]

Still getting the 503, so how do you explain this?

Emerson aged 4 from skelmerdale won a LEGO Ninjago Lasha's Bite Cycle set 38 minutes ago... Well done!

And I found ANOTHER Olivia aged 7.

Olivia aged 7 from London won a Wham-O Aqua Force Crossbow Balloon Launcher 2 hours ago... Great!

[Raven]

I reckon something behind the scenes is scripting the contents of that array and adding new entries to it every few hours from a large predefined list, the contents of which someone sat down and typed out a few weeks ago. If true, this would be, needless to say, completely fraudulent - but, let's not forget, also entirely true to type.

Publishers making up "letters from readers", if that happened, has gone on for decades, but competitions and the like (would this count as a lottery? If so, I think results do have to be announced) have strict legal regulations, so that's a much more serious allegation. You should probably be wary about publicly making it and how you word things, unless you're absolutely certain.

(What did you mean by "The competition wasn't open two hours ago"; it's been open for a while, hasn't it, with these Facebookers announcing their "wins" - even if they can't properly claim them - for some hours? Might just be me misunderstanding you here.)

[-MikeD-]

Just to reiterate...be careful how you phrase your allegations, Swirly! I'm told DCT have been fairly litigious in the past...

That last entry suggests there's a 4 issue sub up for grabs as well as the much more generous 3 month sub? And there are quite a few comments now on the main site and the Facebook page from disgruntled kids and parents.

btw - the site is now letting you claim your 'prize'.

[Digifiend]

Good, but the site should've been working properly in the first place. Someone needs to give us an explanation.

[swirlythingy]

Temporarily removed pending review - A, A and C

[Digifiend]

Yep, I'd have had no reason to suspect those lines were fake if the claims process had been working properly. Turns out the digital subscription is done via a URL and not email - meaning ANYBODY can access it. It starts in September.

[Digifiend]

Another angry FB message from that Stuart Wood fella:

Have you no shame? I have now finally filled in my son's details, using another email address AS HE DOESN'T HAVE ONE BEING A CHILD!!!!! in order to get his 3 month digital subscription that he doesn't want! Only to find it is now only a one month subscription! My son does not want a digital Beano he wants the real thing, do you even have a marketing or customer research department! This has been one big own goal for the Beano, but you still have a chance to get things right. Send the kids a toy!

So, somebody apparently got fobbed off with the four week sub.

Hey Swirly, what gives? Why did you blank your posts?

[BeanoKev70]

I cannot believe some of the post's on here. Its a competition and yes some people will win some of the big prizes and some will win a consolation prize. I'm a regular reader of the Beano & have been for over 30 years, guess what I won a digital subscription & yes I didn't start crying and will still buy my copy off the shelf next week. There will be new readers who have picked up a copy for the first time who will use the free subscription to sample the comic online over the next few months & then like me continue to buy off the shelf...hopefully resulting in increased sales going forward. Some users on here need to take a look in the mirror & decide whether this is the place for them (maybe go off and create your own Lets moan continually about the beano forum).

DCT have apologised for the website errors (problems that happen to many large companies from time to time)

So please stop the constant moaning or please don't bother.

[colcool007]

BeanoKev, thank you.

With regard to the 3-month digital vs the 4 week hard copy, the 3 month deal is a lot more costly in lost profit to DCT, so people whinging that they are being hard done by for winning a digital sub are just not reading things properly. Plus parents are more likely to let their small person on the PC/laptop for 10 mins than they are to go down to the local shop.

Nice to see that there are at least some people who accept that the Golden Ticket promo is an attempt to boost sales rather than a cynical attempt to boost profits for a couple of weeks even though both go hand in hand.

[WizzKid97]

Well said, BeanoKev.

I think it's ridiculous that people are actually moaning about winning a 3 month digital subscription! Some kids are so ungrateful - "I want this! I want this!" and then cry and whinge when they don't win what they wanted causing their parents to act like The Beano have done the unforgivable.

A 3-month digital subscription is something I'm very happy with getting! Of course I'd still buy it every week as an actual copy as I'm a collector but as colcool007 said, "the 3 month deal is a lot more costly in lost profit to DCT, so people whinging that they are being hard done by for winning a digital sub are just not reading things properly.".

I think kids should just face the facts that it's a competition and that they didn't win - not cry and sulk because they didn't get the laptop with 9 Transformers books.

it's ridiculous and I really do feel sorry for all at The Beano for the abuse they've received after doing something which they thought would go really well.

[-MikeD-]

Sometimes I wonder if posting on forums like this is worthwhile, given the almost wilful way in which some people misinterpret the comments of others. Grrr...

Anyway, I think it boils down to this - the Golden Ticket promotion appeared to offer a prize gift to everyone who took part. It devoted some dozen pages to showing a range of toys and other products that excited the existing, loyal readership. They never mentioned the digital subscription, but they did say 'everyone's a winner'. Kids, being generally a few degrees less cynical than adults, were swept up in the hype and then were, I think understandably, let down by the sub offer (especially as most kids do not sit in front of a computer to read comics, and very few (I'm guessing) own or have access to a tablet PC). And, speaking personally, it's even harder to 'big up' the idea of a digital sub to your kids when we've subscribed to the much more readable print version for years. My mistake was letting them get their hopes up, when I should have urged caution, but this would have meant undermining their trust in the comic. And, believe me, the 'but at least it will boost sales' argument holds no sway in the minds of preteens. So, an important life lesson learned for some young readers but also, I think, a few lessons there for DCT and The Beano.

If they had mentioned the sub earlier, and used a soupçon less hyperbole, this could have all being avoided. I don't want this debate to drag on for weeks, as it's tiny in the big scheme of things, and I don't want The Beano 'brand' damaged by this, we love The Beano and the more readers the better. But when folks roll on here and start calling the critics 'moaners' and 'whingers,' and when one of them is also a moderator (Colcool!), I start to think we've reached the limit of what can be discussed openly on this already narrowly focused board without deploying generic insults.

[WizzKid97]

Anyway, I think it boils down to this - the Golden Ticket promotion appeared to offer a prize gift to everyone who took part. It devoted some dozen pages to showing a range of toys and other products that excited the existing, loyal readership. They never mentioned the digital subscription, but they did say 'everyone's a winner'. Kids, being generally a few degrees less cynical than adults, were swept up in the hype and then were, I think understandably, let down by the sub offer (especially as most kids do not sit in front of a computer to read comics, and very few (I'm guessing) own or have access to a tablet PC). And, speaking personally, it's even harder to 'big up' the idea of a digital sub to your kids when we've subscribed to the much more readable print version for years. My mistake was letting them get their hopes up, when I should have urged caution, but this would have meant undermining their trust in the comic. And, believe me, the 'but at least it will boost sales' argument holds no sway in the minds of preteens. So, an important life lesson learned for some young readers but also, I think, a few lessons there for DCT and The Beano.

I think that's a fair enough argument to make. From looking through the latest issue of The Beano, it's true that there really is no mention of a digital subscription for all readers - instead showing off all of the bigger prizes and when it comes down to it - they messed up. They should have mentioned that not everyone will win a toy or holiday but everyone wins a digital subscription. A bad move by The Beano which they should hopefully correct.

[Digifiend]

The biggest issue, which people genuinely have the right to be angry about, is the fact the website went down preventing claims from being submitted. I hope the web team have learned from the problems they had. And they definitely should've mentioned the digital sub in the first place. Last week's Beano doesn't mention it at all.

[Phoenix]

colcool2007

I hope you realise, WizzKid297, that you have just deBonded one of our honourable administrators.