A while back, I wrote an
article saying how awesome
Lockerz.com is. I'm truly sorry to say that I was completely wrong about them. Even though I mentioned the fact that I wouldn't complain about getting free stuff, I feel somewhat used and manipulated...so I'm going to go ahead and do it (hey, it might save some people from wasting hours on this website).
I registered on Lockerz.com on September 14th and to date I haven't been able to redeem any products. But, that's not my problem with the website. It's the way they dealt with their users.
At Lockerz.com, people earn "PTZ" by inviting people, answering dailies, and playing games. People can then use these PTZ to redeem cool electronics and games.
I earned 1832 PTZ during my stint with Lockerz.com. This should have been enough points to redeem some of the larger prizes (e.g. iPod touch, XBOX 360, Wii, Laptops, etc...).
You might be asking...How did I get all these points?
Well, I started a website called
LockerzInvites.net. I used the e-mail addresses I received from the website to gain invitation points (4 PTZ for each new confirmed member). Since all these e-mails were from different people, my method was 100% within their terms of service.
So fast forward to November 23rd. After waiting a couple hours for their highly anticipated redemption to start, I was ready to get a prize. Unfortunately, as with last time, the website was laggy and unresponsive. But after about 1,000 refreshes I was finally able to redeem a prize...a XBOX 360 console.!
Man, was I happy. All my hard work was finally going to be rewarded!
But this happiness was short lived.
A couple days after the redemption, Lockerz notified it's users that it they would need to forward their order redemptions to teri@lockerz.com in order to receive their prizes. I immediately (literally within a minute) forwarded these confirmations to the provided e-mail. If that wasn't enough to worry me, the 3 weeks of silence afterwards definitely did. Patiently, I waited for word from the staff. Today, I finally received something about that redemption.
The e-mail starts off with;
We regret to inform you that your most recent prize redemption has been cancelled due to substantial activity in your account that violates our terms and conditions. Such activity could include not accurately acknowledging the extent of cheating during our Amnesty week, redeeming a prize when you had not achieved Z-List status, sending invitations to false email addresses, or other activities prohibited by Lockerz.
Vague is just one of the many words I would use to describe this e-mail. How did I cheat? Why did thousands of others get the same e-mail?
After trying to figure out the answers to these questions, I finally came up with it. They must have gotten in over their heads. It's as simple as that.
I must admit that satisfying millions of users and about 50,000 redemptions is a hard thing to do. But the way they respond (or lack their of) to these challenges shows lack of organizational skills and a solid business model.
Instead of saying "Sorry, but we just don't have the capital to fulfill your orders" they have the audacity to call people "cheaters".
How pathetically juvenile.
Anyway, I've wasted enough time with Lockerz...sorry for this rant, but I'm hoping this can save at least a couple people with hours of their time
