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The Los Angeles Times did a major takedown yesterday of charities’ fundraising expenses, and it turns out that when they hire a company to do it, around 85 cents of the dollar (and often more than that) stays by contract with the fundraiser. In a few cases, there’s a negative return. (Yup, you give $100; the fundraiser keeps it all and charges the charity a fee, and all the charity gets is the name and address of the suck–uh . . contributor.) Los Angeles Times

This was yesterday’s fact in the newsletter.

By deftly swinging, stretching, and doubling a fist-size lump of
flour-and-water dough, a Chinese master noodle maker can create
2,048 strands of “long xu mian” – dragon’s beard noodles – each
as fine as a human hair. (This Chinese delicacy is deep fried
and wrapped into thin pancakes)

And here is the video. Thanks Sandra!

6/10/2008

Media Contact: Janet C. Hart, CFEE (704) 927-8617

200 Players from 40 States and Canada File Complaints with BBB

Charlotte, NC – June 10, 2008 – Charlotte-based Netwinner.com’s marketing slogan is “You Play. We Pay!” Unfortunately, 182 gamers who played and won prizes on Netwinner.com have not been paid.

Hundreds of people from across the United States and Canada eagerly took Netwinner up on the “You play. We pay!” offer and played Banko and Moneywheel on www.netwinner.com, racking up thousands of points that they expected to redeem for cash, debit cards and/or store gift cards ranging in value from $25 to a few hundred dollars. However, when they tried to redeem the points they had spent months accumulating, the players waited to receive debit cards and gift cards that never arrived.

As the total number of unhappy Netwinner gamers grew, the President of Netwinner, Mr. S. Allen Dean, issued a statement to Netwinner’s online gamers saying that the company was not in a financial position to fulfill the cash, debit card and gift card prizes for which players have redeemed points. He said that Netwinner had two options: close the gaming website down or restructure the prizes. Netwinner opted to restructure the prizes, stating that the Terms of Service that every player agreed to allowed the company to change the rules of the game at any time. Instead of giving guaranteed prizes to every player who reached certain levels of points, Mr. Dean said that prizes would be given away in daily drawings. Mr. Dean added that Netwinner would double the points that each player had to redeem and redeposit them back into the players’ accounts; thereby, increasing the chances that players had to win prizes through the drawings.

Netwinner gamers cried foul! The Better Business Bureau of Southern Piedmont has been inundated with 182 complaints filed against Netwinner by online gamers from 40 states and Canada who allege that Netwinner is not fulfilling the prizes as promised. Netwinner countered by accusing the gamers of fraud. The company claims that some players cheated and may have unfairly accumulated large amounts of points by playing multiple games at the same time or by using automated “robot” programs to accumulate points.

Maureen Duran, a Netwinner player from Kannapolis, NC who claims that Netwinner owes her $175, discounts Netwinner’s position. She said that she did not cheat to win and that it was not possible to play multiple games at the same time. Maureen said her husband also played games on Netwinner and that he is owed even more. Tammy Nelson, from Reno, NV also strongly denies that the gamers were cheating.

“Netwinner has been responsive to some of the complaints received by the Better Business Bureau, but the central issue is that Netwinner changed the rules after the games had been played and the gamers feel they are entitled to receive the prizes they won under the previous rules,” said Tom Bartholomy, President & CEO of The Better Business Bureau of Southern Piedmont. “Before offering the games and prize structure, Netwinner should have determined how high their potential payout liability for the games might be,” Bartholomy added. “At the point that the financial payout became greater than the company could bear – or when Netwinner determined that players may be accumulating more points than anticipated through whatever means they were using to win – the games should have been halted.”

The Better Business Bureau has the following information on file about Netwinner, LLC. Corporate offices – 1427 South Blvd, Suite 200, Charlotte, NC 28203. Mailing address – 105 East Morehead Street. Charlotte, NC 28202. Telephone (704) 347-8850. Principals – President & COO, S. Allen Dean (704) 995-2345, Mark Cottman (980)253-3301; and Jennifer Hinson, (704) 400-1936. Website – www.netwinner.com.

The issue of prize fulfillment may be the reason that traffic to www.netwinner.com has been decreasing dramatically over the past few months. According to www.siteanalytics.compete.com/netwinner.com, the number of visitors to www.Netwinner.com peaked in January, 2008 at slightly more than 200,000 visitors and declined to 99,358 in May, 2008. The total number of visits to www.netwinner.com peaked in January, 2008 at slightly more than 2.25 million visits and declined to 922,571 visits in May, 2008.

The Better Business Bureau has information you can trust. We urge consumers to call the BBB toll-free in NC and SC at 1-877-317-7236 or visit www.bbb.org to obtain a free Reliability Report on a company before doing business with them.

Article can be found here.

This is a post from my buddy Becky over at CompareRewards.

“If you were one of the thousands of people who had your NetWinner redemption reversed, and you live in (or very near) North Carolina, please send me an email ASAP. A TV reporter is investigating and would like to interview a local on camera. Thanks.

By the way, you all may be interested to know that NetWinner’s site visitors are down 73% since the first of the year. I guess everyone’s come to the same conclusion: why bother?”

My buddy Debbie forwarded me this. Interesting info!

And more from subscriber Dee. Thanks Dee!

And here is her email to me:

Dee

James

it really is a simple question.

* I like the people in the forums and I can win points.
Well the forum has been down for a week.

* They still have raffles!
When? When they feel like it? I entered a raffle scheduled to be drawn on May 29. And it wasn’t until today, June 2nd.

* I earn Points!
So do I when I play my Xbox. My son thinks it is awesome, but thats about it.

Come on. There has to be a better reason? It can’t be the games because they are slow and booooring.

Check this out. I had 3,117,000 points. Thats 3.1 million points. I put every one of those points into a raffle. That’s 2078 entries. And still lost. I dont think there are even 2,078 people left playing over there.
Naa, not crying over here, I promise. But I would love to meet the person who won.

I’m not making any accusations or anything, but do you know how easy it is to say John Minster from Oklahoma City won. I’m just saying…..

Let’s say that at one point, Netwinner had 100,000 players and only 10% of them played enough to earn something.

so if 10,000 players each earned $25, thats $250,000 that did NOT pay out to the players.
Do you understand why people are angry?

Oh, but what if they didn’t have the money?
With the advertisers they had and the CPM (meaning they got paid for every x amount of visitors who saw x amount of ad), they got paid. Trust me. I work with a lot of the same advertisers and in 10 years have never had any issues with payment.

But i’m hearing something about fraud?
Yeah, so did I. Like 40% of people were somehow cheating? Wow, thats a lot. Do you honestly believe that?
That tells you that 40% of their players are smarter than their programmers. Ok. That’s like my son saying “IT’S SO HOT OUT, I’M GOING TO DIE!”.
Come on, a little less exxageration please. A More realistic number should be something like 5%

If it really is 40%, then please, shut down the website right now.

So why is it again that you are still playing?

And before I leave, here is a wonderful site of reference. Thanks Becky!

http://comparerewards.blogspot.com

Just added: http://www.freepowerboards.com/theopenforum/index.php

This is just a nice feel good story  =)

Pea story

Babs Miller was bagging some early potatoes for me. I noticed a small boy, delicate of bone and feature,ragged but clean, hungrily apprising a basket of freshly picked green peas.

I paid for my potatoes but was also drawn to the display of fresh green peas. I am a pushover for creamed peas and new potatoes. Pondering the peas, I couldn’t help overhearing the conversation between Mr. Miller and the ragged boy next to me.

“Hello Barry, how are you today?”

“H’lo, Mr. Miller. Fine, thank ya. Jus’ admirin’ them  peas. Sure look good.”

“They are good, Barry. How’s your Ma?”

“Fine. Gittin’ stronger alla’ time.”

“Good. Anything I can help you with?”

“No, Sir. Jus’ admirin’ them peas.”

“Would you like to take some home?”

“No, Sir. Got nuthin’ to pay for ‘em with.”

“Well, what have you to trade me for some of those  peas?”

“All I got’s my prize marble here.”

“Is that right? Let me see it.”

“Here ’tis. She’s a dandy.”

“I can see that. Hmmmmm, only thing is this one is blue and I sort of go for red. Do you have a red one  like this at home?”

“Not zackley. but almost.”

“Tell you what. Take this sack of peas home with you and next trip this way let me look at that red  marble.”

“Sure will. Thanks Mr. Miller.”

Mrs. Miller, who had been standing nearby, came over to help me. With a smile she said, “There are two other boys like him in our community, all three are in very poor circumstances. Jim just loves to bargain with them for peas, apples, tomatoes, or whatever.
When they come back with their red marbles, and they always do, he decides he doesn’t like red after all and he sends them home with a bag of produce for a green marble or an orange one, perhaps.”

I left the stand smiling to myself, impressed with  this man. A short time later I moved to Colorado but I never forgot the story of this man, the boys, and their bartering.

Several years went by, each more rapid that the previous one. Just recently I had occasion to visit some old friends in that Idaho community and while I was there learned that Mr. Miller had died. They were having his viewing that evening and knowing my friends wanted to go, I agreed to accompany them. Upon arrival at the mortuary we fell into line to meet the relatives of the deceased and to offer whatever words of comfort we could.

Ahead of us in line were three young men. One was in  an army uniform and the other two wore nice haircuts, dark suits and white shirts … all very professional
looking.

They approached Mrs. Miller, standing composed and
smiling by her husband’s casket. Each of the young men hugged her, kissed her on the cheek, spoke briefly with her and moved on to the casket.

Her misty light blue eyes followed them as, one by  one, each young man stopped briefly and placed his own warm hand over the cold pale hand in the casket. Each left the mortuary awkwardly, wiping his eyes.

Our turn came to meet Mrs. Miller. I told her who I was and mentioned the story she had told me about the marbles. With her eyes glistening, she took my hand and led me to the casket.

“Those three young men who just left were the boys I  told you about. They just told me how they appreciated the things Jim “traded” them. Now, at last, when Jim could not change his mind about color or size….they came to pay their debt.”

“We’ve never had a great deal of the wealth of this world,” she confided, “but right now, Jim would consider himself the richest man in Idaho ”

With loving gentleness she lifted the lifeless fingers of her deceased husband. Resting underneath were three exquisitely shined red marbles.

Moral: We will not be remembered by our words, but by our kind deeds. Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath.

Today I wish you a day of ordinary miracles….A fresh pot of coffee you didn’t make yourself. An unexpected phone call from an old friend. Green stoplights on your way to work. The fastest line at the grocery store. A good sing-along song on the radio. Your keys right where you left them.

Send this to the people you’ll never forget. If you  don’t send it to anyone, it means you are in too much  of a hurry !