Sponsored

Internationalraptor

Raptor
Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 19, 2022
Threads
18
Messages
178
Reaction score
176
Location
USA
Vehicle(s)
1979 Scout 2
Your Bronco Model
Raptor
Always Leary of this type of post. Went to the website for the organization he claims to represent. There is not a single mention of any charitable raffles. I would think they would be promoting their own raffle.

This to me is a serious red flag. I will not be participating.


Charitable website.
 

Drex

Banned
Badlands
Banned
Banned
First Name
Jake
Joined
Jan 4, 2020
Threads
11
Messages
2,338
Reaction score
7,076
Location
various, construction engineer.
Vehicle(s)
'13 SLK55 AMG, '15 Indian Chief, '15 WRX
Your Bronco Model
Badlands
Always Leary of this type of post. Went to the website for the organization he claims to represent. There is not a single mention of any charitable raffles. I would think they would be promoting their own raffle.

This to me is a serious red flag. I will not be participating.


Charitable website.
Yeah, sadly real life has made me wary of direct links or even fancy websites from time to time. I went to the purported site they claim to represent, checked it out. They had all the required rules in place (like Michigan's law that requires a free method of entry, which I did and it worked) and it seemed legit to me. Of course I got taken in by Ford's reservation website and all the fancy promises they made back in the day as well. So there is that.

I believe the sweepstakes exists, do I believe these folks are part of it and are not just scammers pushing links to their own stuff and claiming it is for a real sweepstakes? Mostly yes, however I had big time doubts when they pushed to tell folks not to enter now, that they would post a link later. (I entered for free immediately at the website without following any links after reading the first post, it worked fine.)

The lack of disclaimers in it except to state (paraphrased) that they were new at this and to forgive any mistakes did not give me the warm fuzzies. The need to act now to get a special deal is also the hallmark of many a scam, never posting a link to the rules (at least before I quit reading the thread before it got to the end of page 2, aside from the most recent one.), stuff like that. New at it, yet they claim detailed knowledge of the financials from previous years, just seems a bit off.

I would not be comfortable using their links to send a donation, YMMV. Not saying it is not completely legitimate, just that there was enough to give me pause. You can easily find the website for the house on your own and enter without their links, donate or not, your choice. They have a long, long history of raffling off Fords most every year I could find.
 

Internationalraptor

Raptor
Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 19, 2022
Threads
18
Messages
178
Reaction score
176
Location
USA
Vehicle(s)
1979 Scout 2
Your Bronco Model
Raptor
I think I found their website. I linked it in my previous post and there was no mention of a raffle of any sort. You’ve made some very good points. I haven’t followed any of the links the OP has posted. Just don’t trust them. They almost got me because the lure and thoughts of having two raptor’s in my garage is strong. Would have entered If I found it on the website he claims he works for.
 

DaveInSA

Badlands
Well-Known Member
First Name
David
Joined
Apr 29, 2022
Threads
33
Messages
744
Reaction score
1,013
Location
San Antonio, Texas
Vehicle(s)
2023 Jeep Grand Cherokee
Your Bronco Model
Badlands
I'm pretty sure it's legit. Sure enough to donate some funds myself.

TapKat, the website running the sweepstakes entries, says it qualifies the organizations that use it. TapKat itself seems legit from web searching.

Plus look at his posts. He's actively referring people to the official email "[email protected] " at Fair Lane for assistance. That is the email listed on the website too.

He also addresses the missing info from the website:
https://www.bronco6g.com/forum/thre...through-sunday-6-12.46455/page-2#post-1449934

Could this still be a really good scam by someone that did their homework? Maybe. Depends on how good TapKat is at verifying organizations. But I don't think it's a scam. Just my opinion though.

There was another sweepstakes for the RTR / Fair Lane Bronco last year. That also used TapKat and some of the links still up in articles on places like Ford Performance actually direct to this one now. The domain listed in some of those was direct to tapkat, some were to broncoforfairlane.com which redirects to this one.

Oh and the official rules are on the website:
https://www.tapkat.org/fair-lane-home-of-clara-and-henry-ford/v5R3xE/rules
 

Sponsored
OP
OP
HenryFordEstate-Cody
First Name
Cody
Joined
Jun 8, 2022
Threads
2
Messages
24
Reaction score
143
Location
Dearborn, MI
Website
www.henryfordfairlane.org
Vehicle(s)
2017 Ford Fusion
Your Bronco Model
Raptor
@Internationalraptor, @Drex, @DaveInSA -

I appreciate the candor and the effort to protect the community, but I hope to ease some of your concerns. It's clear I should have done a better job of providing validation for this fundraiser and will keep that in mind going forward. Your feedback is immensely helpful and I really do appreciate you sharing so I can communicate this better in the future.

Here are some quick updates and additional information. I want to be as transparent as possible to continue earning this community's trust, so I apologize if this is TMI.
  • I updated the website's announcement banner to indicate that the sweepstakes is currently under way: https://www.henryfordfairlane.org/.
    • This was poor planning on my part. My thought was that I would run early bird specials the first two weeks of the fundraiser and then officially announce it on the website immediately after. Hindsight is 20-20 and I should have had a News post and banner message from day 1.
    • While it doesn't help now, I plan to officially announce the sweepstakes on our website and Facebook this Thursday, June 16. Again, this was dumb of me not to prepare earlier, but I'll do better in the future.
  • Asking not to enter immediately after I introduced myself - this was because I hadn't prepared a promotion for the community yet. I didn't want a bunch of people buying into the sweepstakes then getting frustrated that they didn't get the bonus entries.
  • Entering for free - since this is a sweepstakes, people can enter for free once per day. This is what allows us to differentiate the sweepstakes from a raffle, which would be considered gambling.
  • Prior authorization - even before sharing on communities like this (Bronco Raptor Forums, Bronco Nation in the near future, etc.) I reach out to the owners/moderators to first request permission. This is done out of respect to the community while also allowing the owners/moderators to verify the authenticity with me via email/phone/etc.
  • We're not marketing professionals - I apologize that my message created concern. I added that to stress that we're legitimately not marketing professionals and have room to learn/improve. Four of our nine full-time team members are working on this fundraiser: our President, Director of Operations, our Construction Project Manager, and myself, the Director of Finance and Administration. We work together to support these fundraisers, even if we don't have the designated responsibility to do so. Last year, the team didn't think to reach out to the Bronco community via forums which is why it didn't happen in the past. Since I've an avid forum user, elsewhere, I saw the value in sharing this opportunity with this community.
    • Being new to it - this was in reference to me being newer to the team and having never assisted with a sweepstakes before. Again, poor wording on my part. As a Director with the team, I have access to financial and campaign information from prior years.
    • My own personal concerns - I'm also an avid skeptic when it comes to sweepstakes and raffles like these. That's why I tried to make this a little more personal (e.g. sharing my experience, my personal information, and even personal photos). I asked myself what I'd like to see and didn't think what others would want to see.
    • Do not hesitate to email me directly, [email protected], if you have any questions. If it helps, here's my LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/codytousignant/.
I really want to apologize to those that are concerned about this sweepstakes. If there's anything additional I can do to help ease concerns, please call them out here or message me directly.

As a reminder to everyone in this community, this 40% promo expires tonight, midnight EST. You're more than welcome to buy after that, but the general public launch won't be getting a bonus 40%. We'll likely offer a general public early bird at 20-25% bonus entries, then transition to no bonuses for a while.

https://www.tapkat.org/fair-lane-home-of-clara-and-henry-ford/v5R3xE?promo=BRONCO6GEARLY

Thank you again to everyone here!
 

DaveInSA

Badlands
Well-Known Member
First Name
David
Joined
Apr 29, 2022
Threads
33
Messages
744
Reaction score
1,013
Location
San Antonio, Texas
Vehicle(s)
2023 Jeep Grand Cherokee
Your Bronco Model
Badlands
In!!! Just hope somebody up in here wins!!!
It's always nice when someone you are at least partially familiar with wins. But my experiences so far it's always the guy that happened upon the announcement from some place other than the forums and only enters once that wins instead of the guys that enter every day (for those other sweepstakes that are only 1 entry per day) :)
Oh well. Maybe one of us will be lucky.
 

DaveInSA

Badlands
Well-Known Member
First Name
David
Joined
Apr 29, 2022
Threads
33
Messages
744
Reaction score
1,013
Location
San Antonio, Texas
Vehicle(s)
2023 Jeep Grand Cherokee
Your Bronco Model
Badlands
@Internationalraptor, @Drex, @DaveInSA -

I appreciate the candor and the effort to protect the community, but I hope to ease some of your concerns. It's clear I should have done a better job of providing validation for this fundraiser and will keep that in mind going forward. Your feedback is immensely helpful and I really do appreciate you sharing so I can communicate this better in the future.

Here are some quick updates and additional information. I want to be as transparent as possible to continue earning this community's trust, so I apologize if this is TMI.
  • I updated the website's announcement banner to indicate that the sweepstakes is currently under way: https://www.henryfordfairlane.org/.
    • This was poor planning on my part. My thought was that I would run early bird specials the first two weeks of the fundraiser and then officially announce it on the website immediately after. Hindsight is 20-20 and I should have had a News post and banner message from day 1.
    • While it doesn't help now, I plan to officially announce the sweepstakes on our website and Facebook this Thursday, June 16. Again, this was dumb of me not to prepare earlier, but I'll do better in the future.
  • Asking not to enter immediately after I introduced myself - this was because I hadn't prepared a promotion for the community yet. I didn't want a bunch of people buying into the sweepstakes then getting frustrated that they didn't get the bonus entries.
  • Entering for free - since this is a sweepstakes, people can enter for free once per day. This is what allows us to differentiate the sweepstakes from a raffle, which would be considered gambling.
  • Prior authorization - even before sharing on communities like this (Bronco Raptor Forums, Bronco Nation in the near future, etc.) I reach out to the owners/moderators to first request permission. This is done out of respect to the community while also allowing the owners/moderators to verify the authenticity with me via email/phone/etc.
  • We're not marketing professionals - I apologize that my message created concern. I added that to stress that we're legitimately not marketing professionals and have room to learn/improve. Four of our nine full-time team members are working on this fundraiser: our President, Director of Operations, our Construction Project Manager, and myself, the Director of Finance and Administration. We work together to support these fundraisers, even if we don't have the designated responsibility to do so. Last year, the team didn't think to reach out to the Bronco community via forums which is why it didn't happen in the past. Since I've an avid forum user, elsewhere, I saw the value in sharing this opportunity with this community.
    • Being new to it - this was in reference to me being newer to the team and having never assisted with a sweepstakes before. Again, poor wording on my part. As a Director with the team, I have access to financial and campaign information from prior years.
    • My own personal concerns - I'm also an avid skeptic when it comes to sweepstakes and raffles like these. That's why I tried to make this a little more personal (e.g. sharing my experience, my personal information, and even personal photos). I asked myself what I'd like to see and didn't think what others would want to see.
    • Do not hesitate to email me directly, [email protected], if you have any questions. If it helps, here's my LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/codytousignant/.
I really want to apologize to those that are concerned about this sweepstakes. If there's anything additional I can do to help ease concerns, please call them out here or message me directly.

As a reminder to everyone in this community, this 40% promo expires tonight, midnight EST. You're more than welcome to buy after that, but the general public launch won't be getting a bonus 40%. We'll likely offer a general public early bird at 20-25% bonus entries, then transition to no bonuses for a while.

https://www.tapkat.org/fair-lane-home-of-clara-and-henry-ford/v5R3xE?promo=BRONCO6GEARLY

Thank you again to everyone here!
Just fyi I tried the link for the free entry, put in my email, and... didn't receive anything. That was about 12 hours ago.
 

Planet_Express_IV

Outer Banks
Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 1, 2022
Threads
2
Messages
302
Reaction score
344
Location
Michigan
Vehicle(s)
2013 Ford Focus ST
Your Bronco Model
Outer Banks
Clubs
 
Just fyi I tried the link for the free entry, put in my email, and... didn't receive anything. That was about 12 hours ago.
It usually doesn't come in until after midnight in my experience, I've received a few of the free entry tickets already since finding the raffle and this one always comes in around midnight, I've seen others come in at 1-5am also in the past
 

Sponsored
OP
OP
HenryFordEstate-Cody
First Name
Cody
Joined
Jun 8, 2022
Threads
2
Messages
24
Reaction score
143
Location
Dearborn, MI
Website
www.henryfordfairlane.org
Vehicle(s)
2017 Ford Fusion
Your Bronco Model
Raptor
Just fyi I tried the link for the free entry, put in my email, and... didn't receive anything. That was about 12 hours ago.
It usually doesn't come in until after midnight in my experience, I've received a few of the free entry tickets already since finding the raffle and this one always comes in around midnight, I've seen others come in at 1-5am also in the past
I'll chat with TapKat tomorrow morning to figure out how they push the free entry emails. While testing their service, I signed up for a bunch of free entries with other sweepstakes and I didn't receive an email until 12:00 AM EST. My guess is that their system sends them out once per day, around midnight EST, but I'll double-check with them tomorrow.
 
OP
OP
HenryFordEstate-Cody
First Name
Cody
Joined
Jun 8, 2022
Threads
2
Messages
24
Reaction score
143
Location
Dearborn, MI
Website
www.henryfordfairlane.org
Vehicle(s)
2017 Ford Fusion
Your Bronco Model
Raptor
Mine finally showed up at 11pm last night.
The tickets from donating were instant.
Glad to hear you finally received the free entry!

I haven't had a chance to meet with TapKat today, but my guess is that it's a bot deterrent. In looking back at last year's sweepstakes data, there were definitely some bots attempting to make hundreds of free entries each day using the same name with a slight variation in email address. Fortunately, the system disqualifies them when caught.

Super annoying for general consumers. I'll pass along any additional details I receive from their team on how that system works.
Sponsored

 
 


Top