Horseshow.com owned by Horse Show World owned by Aria Ventures (45%)
Complaint 111000 Details

On 1/8/12, I entered horseshow.com's Coolest Horse in the World Contest. The contest was widely promoted throughout the online equine community. In it, participants uploaded videos of their horses and members (of course, this meant participants brought new members to horseshow.com) of horseshow.com voted up to a maximum of 5 times. The first horse with 5000 votes would win and the end date was the end of the year. Second through fifth place would receive a Kodak Playtouch video camera. The contest actually began in November 2011, but entries could be submitted at any time.

The first problems were a variety of problems including people not being allowed to sign up to vote, problems with the site when people tried to vote, and other tech problems with site such as links not working. A number of participants had experienced these issues, not just myself.

Second, the Terms and Conditions of the site strictly forbid copyright infringement on intellectual property used in the videos, yet many if not most of the videos contained copyrighted music. When questions about this were posted to horseshow.com's facebook page, the postings were removed. I received an email from the Director of Marketing stating it was okay to use audio in the video and there was no problem unless the record company complained. So much for the rules!

Third, this widely touted contest was quietly moved to the completed section with only a blue ribbon beside and a label under the "winning" video. No 2nd-5th places announced. No announcement on their facebook page (which had tripled in "likes" during the contest) like they do for all their other contests. All the while, the vote counter for my video stated I had finished in 1st Place but it was not my video being pronounced the "winner".

A little investigation into this "winning" video found that on 2/10/12, a person known as "Tluvr" had posted to the about.com sweepstakes vote request forum a request for votes (which was okay as use of social media was forbidden in the rules) and stated the contest would end on 3/15/12. Which would have been the about the date they would have had to got 5000 votes as my horse got 5000 a few days later than this. Horseshow.com would not respond when sent screenshots of this and inquiries were made as to if this person was psychic. Next, it was found this same person had posted to a facebook exchange page and asked "how many votes could be deleivered" (there is a problem with the exchange of multiple votes as this involves the use of fake facebook accounts). When a screenshot of this was sent to horseshow.com, the discussion was closed without a response. I also found it curious that on Tluvr's facebook page (Tlu Vr), Twitter page, and blogs, the only mention of this horse was to ask for votes in this contest. No photos or videos of the horse, no mention of barn activities, shows, nor riding the horse.

Then a look at the profile of one Eric Paulsen (www.horseshow.com/users/profile/2) on horseshow.com revealed he was a co-founder of horseshow.com and their IT or computer programming person on the horseshow.com team. It also revealed along with several test videos, Mr. Paulsen had uploaded the "winning" video on 12/6/11. This was the only video from this or any other contest on the site he had uploaded. So was Mr. Paulsen psychic, too???

Then a google search turned this up:

"Featured profile - Tluvr - Lulu's Love Shack Dating
dating.lls.uniform.co.za/s/d/2729296
Tluvr. Male. Looking for a nice/fun woman. Why should you get to know Tluvr ... I am an honest and intelligent IT manager who has had his heart broken one too ..."

Oh really, Tluver and Mr. Paulsen are, not only both psychic, but both IT managers??? How strange!!! But I guess that would explain all the technical issues I and other participants experienced trying to get votes in the contest.

The really disgusting thing about all this is many of the participants devoted a lot of time and energy to get votes not because they were greedy people but because they wanted the money to help rescued horses, pay for college tuition for a child, pay medical bills from a serious riding accident, one was going to give the money to several horse rescues, and I was going to use the money to start an equine program for terminally and chronically ill children. We could all have spent our time and energy better by pursuing other avenues to get the funds we needed if we had only known better.

I also had entered The Best Bred of All Contest on horseshow.com in which the first video to 1000 votes was to receive $500. I have been at over 1000 votes and in 1st Place for the past month and a half but the contest keeps going on and, of course, horseshow.com will not respond to my question as to when they will end the contest.

It seems all they want is new members on their website and new "likes" on their facebook page which will translate into higher advertising revenues and they apparently have no intentions of giving away any of the prizes they use to promote their contests.

Oh, I do have screenshots of all of the things I reported and the email from the Director of Marketing.