Bad luck

In August, Allure magazine had sweepstakes for about 20,000 giveaways. For some of them, there was a raffle, for others the person needed to go to the Allure website every hour to participate. Whoever got there first would get the products, according to them. Some products were only or a few but others had many opportunities; I think there was 1000 of one product.

I thought I had a good chance to log in at the hour and get something since I work on a computer all day. I synchronized my clock with the official USA time and logged in. I participated in almost all giveaways. I got nothing, absolutely nothing, not even one of the 1,000 one-dollar items for the first 1,000 people who logged in.

I do not know what I did wrong. Perhaps, their time in the computers was really off or perhaps I had bad luck.

I do not think of myself as a bad luck carrier, but who knows. Perhaps since I chose not to receive any newsletters (they had an option to receive mailing and promotional materials from the sponsors) I was disqualified, but that was not a requirement so I hope that was not the reason. Something was definitely wrong.

I have since been wondering if participating in sweepstakes and raffles like this are worth the effort. Yes, I see some people winning them, but like the lottery, it seems that the probability is rather small. I have not given up hope, though. Next time I will opt in for the marketing messages and see if I win something.