In early October I wrote about Christian Méthot and the contest cheating ring he created. I translated the series that appeared in Le Journal de Montreal.
- Cheaters Always Win (& Get Caught)
- Cheaters Always Win (& Get Caught) — Part II
- Cheaters Always Win (& Get Caught) — Part III
Seems that getting the word out has stripped Christian Méthot of a big prize. The contest community must be vigilant, continuing to warn sponsors and agencies alike.
NOTE: I used Google to translate this article. I did a bit of editing so the sentences flowed, somewhat, properly.
The king loses his Corvette competitions
Christian Méthot is deprived of a prize worth more than $ 65,000 as a result of the investigation Journal
The computer programmer who repeatedly won competitions for years has been deprived of his biggest prize, a gleaming Corvette Stingray, following the investigation of the Journal, which uncovered his ploy.
Christian Méthot is this clever programmer Repentigny that developed an automated system to flood competitions for hundreds of thousands of entries by using bogus email addresses.
Subterfuge allowed the young man and his nominees, ten accomplices recruited from among his relatives and friends, to grab more than $160,000 in prizes.
Méthot proceeded the same way last summer as part of a competition organized jointly by Canadian Tire and Mobil 1 (Imperial), which involved a brand-new Corvette valued at over $ 65,000.
Reportedly, his maneuvers were successful at first and Méthot had “won” the sports car. Now, more than two months after the draw, which was held at the headquarters of Canadian Tire on September 8, the identity of the winner remains unknown.
The organizers realized after the drawing that Christian Méthot had filled thousands of online entry forms, whereas the rules allowed for a maximum of 10 entries per person.
“We have re-evaluated the results after finding a high number of entries by the winner,” said Killeen Kelly, spokesman for Imperial.
She has recently confirmed that the original winner was disqualified for breaking the rules. The name of the real winner will be announced shortly.
Kelly did not say if they heard invoke another clause which provides that the sponsors can pursue damages a participant trying to “deliberately undermine the legitimate operation of this Contest.”
An alert reader
According to our information, the management of Canadian Tire was alerted by one of its employees in Quebec who had read the series of reports on the Journal of Clan ploy Méthot. It is only then that we checked the number of coupons filled by the computer programmer, then decided to disqualify him.
Nevertheless, a beautiful Corvette Stingray 2015 was nearly delivered to him.
Contacted after the drawing to know which Canadian Tire he wanted to receive his award, Méthot had expressed its preference for the branch of Saint-Bruno. The franchisee Ghislain Grandisson confirms being advised at the time that it was his location where the Corvette was about to be accepted. Since then he has not heard anything.
Not the first time
Why the programmer he asked to call his Corvette at Canadian Tire Saint-Bruno rather than that of Repentigny, where he lives? Probably because it is the residence of Jean Methot, his father.
This is the retiree who is in charge actually reselling the vehicles earned by the group. In February, the sister of Christian Méthot won a Fiat, he sold $12 500. In this case, the clan Méthot had filled more than 60% of 204,585 coupon registrations submitted to this contest.
Last month, Jean Methot also welcomed us, with his son, when we pretended to want to buy a snowmobile $14,000 won in a competition and put on sale on Kijiji site. We have since learned that the number of coupons filled by Méthot and his accomplices were given 90% chance of winning this snowmobile.
Christian Méthot did not respond to questions from the Journal, if not to invite him to “keep googling me to learn more.”
68,000 coupons for Chevrolet
Canadian Tire is not the only organizer of the competition to removing the holdings of Christian Méthot and its nominees who were trying to win a car by multiplying the entries in the thousands.
The Journal has learned that Benny & Co chain had to intervene in August as part of a contest that offered a Chevrolet Cruze and 35 packages of four tickets to an Alouettes football game.
“When making the draw, the same names came by randomly choosing the winners, while the participants were allowed to fill only one coupon. Freelancing the computer file was cleaned before re “says Julie Benny, marketing manager for the chain restaurants.
Organized Group
By opening the database of registrations, they found that 10 names returned a total of 68,000 times. It is by reading the Journal series of reports, two months later, that the organizers noticed that it was a well-organized group.
“For this competition, we have added a security code when filling out the coupon. And we make sure that each winner has filled only one coupon, as required by regulation, “says Benny.
Winner in good standing
Despite the thousands of entries Clan Méthot, it is a person in good standing, Jacques Houle, who won the Grand Prize, the Cruze is worth nearly $27,000.
Several people then wrote to restaurateur, suspecting a link between the winner and Réjeanne Houle, the mother of Christian Méthot, who was also listed 6868 times in this contest, according to data Benny & Co provided to the Journal.
“We checked, and the winner had completed only one coupon,” says Ms. Benny.
You can win a car without transgressing the rules.
Read the article to see all the pictures and additional details I couldn’t easily blog about (that don’t need translating).
I hope Imperial takes Christian Méthot to court for costs incurred as a result of researching the fraud and selecting a new winner. If more companies took him to court, versus just disqualification, I bet the cheating would stop rapidly.
Are you continuing to warn marketers of these cheaters?
I totally agree it’s nice to see him lose the Vette. But the part that still gets my blood boiling is the total neglect on the sponsors part. If they were not messaged by a regular joe he would have received his prize. They (sponsor) couldn’t be bothered to follow their own rules. The promotion was 10 entries per person. You would think the very first thing upon closure of the contest they would do is toss all entries into a spread sheet and sort various ways. Eg. Phone. Name address. Etc etc and eliminate all that had over 10 entries. Nope they didn’t even consider it until someone pointed it out to them. What’s the point of rules if you have no intention of confirming they were being followed. So as much as it gave me a nice chuckle to see Methot lose out on a big prize my rational brain tells me that he probably won 10 others while losing that one because sponsors are lazy incompetent or just plain don’t care.
My reaction was same as Mark V’s above. I became incredibly annoyed at Mobil and Canadian Tire for NOT even checking if the winner operated legitimately. All they had to do is check if his entries were more than (total number of contest entry days)x10 and also to see if too many entries came from same IP address A 4th grader could do the math required! Many people played in that contest, including myself and we followed the rules, so that is why the reaction is so negative to the sponsors. When putting on a promotion, the sponsors I feel owe a duty to their customers to ensure that the rules that the customers agreed to upon entry were truly being followed. Otherwise what is the point of rules?
I’m so glad he was found out!! He should be banned from entering any contests for life!
I wish the law could step in and charge him with computer fraud. There should be some law they can charge him with. Contest tampering??
Many companies just don’t care you just have to look at the patio set that was awarded to the dog