Is this unethical?

[OscarMike]

I've discovered certain plugins that allow you to create a viral giveaway. This is a great way to build a list for much less money than it would normally cost. Each contestant gets an extra entry if they share your contest with their friends for instance. One of the drawbacks of a giveaway, for the person organizing, it is the cost involved. Let's say you wanted to hold a contest for a golf club (let's say you're trying to build a list of golf enthusiasts and want to promote golf products on clickbank). This can cost hundreds of dollars. Golf clubs aren't cheap. It got me thinking, what if you created a FAKE giveaway? These giveaway apps don't force you to publicly reveal who the winner is. They allow you to contact the winner whenever you want. You theoretically don't even have to give away anything and nobody would know because you tell the entrants you'll contact the winner privately. You can keep your costs really low by doing this.

What do you guys think? Is this unethical? Are there laws that prevent this from happening? Am I a scumbag?

 

[T J Tutor]

I think that we are fighting the criminal element in our industry every second of every day and you want to be a criminal!

 

[Graybeard]

Are you related to the Prince of Nigeria by any chance?
You are proposing to just scam people --have them work and not get paid.

 

[OscarMike]

I think that we are fighting the criminal element in our industry every second of every day and you want to be a criminal!

Thanks for the response TJ Tutor and Graybeard. To be clear, I haven't tried this and don't plan to do this. But I have run a real giveaway online and it got me thinking: it's SOO easy to lie. I know it's not ethical but there's a lot of fibbing in online marketing. It reminds me of email submit CPA offers. I remember reading a lot of complaints on another online marketing forum about email submits being scammy. They said a lot of times getting the prize was impossible. The email submit merchant gives the ILLUSION that a prize will be given but in reality nothing is given to anyone.

 

[iamb]

Don't do it. Yes it's unethical and plain wrong.

 

[Honeybadger]

Some questions don't need to be asked
Should I sell caps on Ebay and mail empty packages?
Come on dude you're better than this
Karma comes full circle

 

[PureLander]

Is this unethical? Are there laws that prevent this from happening? Am I a scumbag?

Do you have to ask?

Thanks for the response TJ Tutor and Graybeard. To be clear, I haven't tried this and don't plan to do this. But I have run a real giveaway online and it got me thinking: it's SOO easy to lie. I know it's not ethical but there's a lot of fibbing in online marketing. It reminds me of email submit CPA offers. I remember reading a lot of complaints on another online marketing forum about email submits being scammy. They said a lot of times getting the prize was impossible. The email submit merchant gives the ILLUSION that a prize will be given but in reality nothing is given to anyone.

You know what? Be careful, because you're a SUPER bad criminal .. People usually don't share these things .. it's not related to being honest or lying... If you shared such thoughts, you :
>> Make others judge you of thinking of such a thing
>> They will be aware from you, because you're likely do this in the future
>> Maybe someone who wants taking the shortcut will be influenced by your thoughts..
you're creating other scambags ..

- Samira