How MajorDrop fooled everyone

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Disclaimer: This post is entirely on my view on the recent events at Major Drop

Its seldom I post up a post such as this, but I guess I'm unsatisfied and I just want to cari pasal with a shop called MajorDrop which says its Southeast Asia's Leading Streetwear Store.

A short intro on MajorDrop. It has a physical store at Sunway Pyramid, and also is an online shop which sells pretty awesome brands such as Bellroy, Billionaire Boys Club, Civil, Pestle & Mortar and much more. No doubt I do like its product lineup as it is pretty unique and stylish.

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So why am I writing this post?

Well it all started when MajorDrop posted up something super eye catching
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A chance to win a Superior ocean view cabin of Its The Ship! Whoa sure pretty exciting weih!

Not to worry if their contest website www.majordrop.com/pages/its2015 is taken down, I've already screenshot everything needed (below)


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So to think of it, It is a pretty sweet deal where you purchase RM200 worth of products, and stand a chance to win a cabin at Its The Ship worth $1,288 USD. So i thought to myself, yeah why not i just buy some awesome products and hope that I'm lucky enough to win.

Here are the contest details (Screenshot from their page)

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So basically the contest mechanics are:
- Buy RM200 worth of products
- Instagram your products with the rubber duck
- Tag: @MajorDropOfficial @ItsTheShip 
- Hashtag: #MDAllAboard #MajorDrop #ITS2015
- Contest Period: 14 Oct - 25 Oct

Pretty simple mechanics yeah? The ones highlighted in Red are the important parts of this post

Then I thought to myself, what are the chances of this contest being rigged? Since there's plenty of times it happened with other smaller brands. I convinced myself that Major Drop would play by the rules and do what is right when organizing a contest


WRONG!

Turns out, they probably did rig the contest. As of yesterday they made the announcement of winners which the winner of it is the user Benphat2003. At first sight, it was already dubious as firstly, I never saw an Instagram user named Benphat2003 with the hashtag #MDAllAboard. So i decided to do some digging

Here is the winning post:
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And as you see below through Iconosquare/Instagram, if you hashtag #MDAllAboard, you will not find his post. That means he is either a private account or he didn't put the hashtag. 

Notice that the 2 similar pictures here are posted by Major Drop Official (so it is not uploaded by him)

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So lets dig a bit on who is Benphat2003


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Seems pretty normal to me


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Wait what?? his last post was 20 Weeks ago? then suddenly reappears to join the contest?



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So I checked out his contest post, looks pretty normal, but when you click the hashtag..

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Its the wrong hashtag. So by right it is already not following the criteria of the contest and shouldn't be allowed to win

If you don't believe it or if he does change his hashtag after this post, Here is a video I recorded:





So i decided to go through more thoroughly on his win. This is only a theory as I do not have any shipping records from Major Drop. If you noticed, his duck has a hashtag #01 on it which means its the first duck to go out. Mine is #02 as you can see in this picture:


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So why do i think that it has been rigged? Time Stamps!

The contest went live at 12:02pm, 14/10/15


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And when you look at his post:


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It is exactly the next day. The Time frame is REALLY short as Poslaju takes a good 1-2 days to send anything out. and by 3PM, that is the last shipment out for Poslaju. 


So its as if, within 2 hours 58 minutes, He made the purchase and Major Drop went all out and sent the parcel off before 3pm, which is really tight.

If they do ship out the following day, the earliest he would get his parcel is by 16th Oct (which is already not in the time frame)

A fine example of why I think they take their time sending their parcels out, My duck is #02 which is the 2nd order

I ordered a hat and a shirt at 3:19am, 15 Oct 2015
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My items were only shipped out on the 19th and I only received it on the 20th.

Poslaju records:
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Just by this, Its hard to think that Major Drop ships out effective immediately after an order is place. And the process takes at least a day to reach the destination


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Last but not least. I did call up Majordrop HQ over the phone and talked over the phone with a girl named Jin which is part of the contest team (Redirected from Majordrop Sunway)

As I asked her was there any foul play with the contest, she said there wasn't any foul play involved 

But what made it a big giveaway is that she replied me: IN ALL FAIRNESS, HE  IS ONE OF OUR REGULARS. 

and straight after that she took that back and said "winners were chosen at random"


FAVOURITISM! 

I was then directed to their head, Julian, which in the end he just apologized that they made the mistake but will not do anything about it as they've already announced the winners.


So all in all, I do believe that it hasn't been fair to me and the other contestants. It has been false advertising since you've probably already determined the winner from the start. 

This will be the last time I will do anything with you guys, and I hope the rest of you will think twice if participating in anything they organize.


Updates 
- Major Drop Head Of Marketing, Feix called me after this post has gone live
- He apologizes for his mistake as he was the one who chose the winner without checking the contest criteria (Hashtags etc)
- He confirms that Ben is a regular customer
- He says its not rigged, as Ben asked for a COD at Bangsar, so the items were packed at the shop and the COD was done the next day at Bangsar (This is up to you to believe)
- He offered to refund the amount of money spent on the items that were purchased for this contest 
(I honestly feel this is still not good enough for a contest like this. A good example of what could be done is: Bojio App's screwup on their Heineken Thirst contest which they did a re-election of winners for the contest they rigged)
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