Term and Conditions
Does somebody have the earliest Pixelotto.com Terms and Conditions for advertisers?
I'd like to read it and compare with current.
http://pixelotto.com/advertiser_tcs
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
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I think they went something like:
1) All advertisers agree to give me (Alex Tew) lots of money, and in return I agree to give them nothing at all.
2) If anyone is not happy about this, then we will quote the terms and conditions to you, thus making it perfectly ok for us to take your money and give you nothing back.
3) We (Pixelotto (tm) (reg) (etc)) would much rather write out lots of terms and conditions, rather than spend some time making sure we actually had a GOOD idea for a business.
4) etc.
Exactly
Here is the actual reply sent by Alex Tew to an advertiser asking for refund:
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I'm afraid we cannot issues a refund as we have provided the service exactly in accordance with our Advertising Terms and Conditions available at http://www.pixelotto.com/advertiser_tcs
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>>>>
I'm afraid we cannot issues a refund as we have provided the service exactly in accordance with our Advertising Terms and Conditions
>>>>
Apart from the typo, I think what he meant to say was "I'm afraid you have no case"
Cannot is incorrect. Sure he can! :)
come on Alex, there's a good lad! No hard feelings, eh?
BTW, can we devote a blog to "what could work in making PL a successful enterprise?"
someone brought up pricing. Perhaps some other people have opinions on marketing and PR. Others again perhaps on revamping the whole page.
After all, a 100 square pixel block is not REALLY going to get you any sort of sales.
I think the emphasis should also be on delivering value to the customer, as opposed to "delivering traffic". i.e. Alex Tew goes on telly SOMEHOW and talks about PL and people visit the site again out of curiosity. Traffic, yes. Value? that's sort of been the bone of contention for some time now, right?
He needs a press story to get the world's interest. How about the Tew Appeal: struggling businessman needs more cash to buy food until the business takes off. Living on a million dollars is harder than it looks! Wife has not eaten for 4 days and the third car is at risk. Send cash ASAP. (May be forced to sell second home - it's that serious - please help.)
Maybe the Russian will threaten him with a badly written email. He will then be forced to tell everyone and the website visitor count will spin. It worked before, so why not try it again?
>>>> can we devote a blog to "what could work in making PL a successful enterprise?">>>>
Why on earth would anyone want to help Tew get out of this one???
He has done nothing to promote it, done nothing to answer the critics, done nothing full stop.
So why would you waste your energy giving him ideas for his next project when he will probably be to lazy to do anything with it anyway.
If you think your ideas are good enough do it yourself.
Don't feed the hasbeens and the copycats anymore!
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Why on earth would anyone want to help Tew get out of this one???
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Nah nah nah, I mean let's put our heads together and see what we can come up with. If there's a viable, successful formula out there it can be done more than once. Let him try and copy, he'd probably mess it up anyhow.
I'm just keen to get more value from this blog community than merely slating Tew (however much he is fodder for same).
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If you think your ideas are good enough do it yourself.
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Actually I was rather hoping to do something jointly. I've enough on my plate right now with my own projects, and of course if I come up with something which I can do myself, then I'll just go and do it.
what makes these blogs special is that people who normally would never meet to collaborate are in a position to do so.
Hey, if I said "he needs to do X,Y,Z" and it was true, I am convinced that a) he would not do it out of sheer stubborness or b) he would not be ABLE to do it. Somethings need to be worked on and through with others. 1% inspiration remember, the 99% is the hard bit. And teamwork between diverse people can really help.
that's (partly) where he went wrong.
I think the Pixelotto fiasco, is going to turn a lot of advertisers away from "quirkier" forms of advertising for a while.
Although I'm sure there are a lot of smart, creative people here that could come up with great ideas, providing a decent service to both advertisers and visitors alike.
Best wishes to those who try.
pixelotto is dead. game over.
pixelotto is a titanic :)
Gone with the wind
What comes easy goes easy
Poor clickers
They are the biggest victims of this tragedy
Do you think that they still clicking?
Only if they are "Tewed".
hey, has anyone noticed that the prize fund has dropped by a few hundred dollars on pixelotto site in last couple of days? maybe somebody got a refund!!!
Alex will be back. Wait for his e-book, it will be hotter than Harry Potter!
Tew is a money making machine.
The sales graph at this site looks like a flatline.
The thing that angers me is that Alex Tew has done nothing to promote the site.I can think of a million things he could've done, given the money he obviously has in his back pocket.
I'm sure everyone else here has plenty of ideas too, but like hell am i going to help him.
Fair play to him for coming up with the original. However, he clearly thought that his million dollar homepage success would carry him through this project as well.
Yet,somehow, he has produced a site which is far worse than the original. In my opinion Alex Tew has tried to rip-off pixel buyers by charging them twice the amount for pixels, whilst the site will only be online for a year or so .
This site is dead, and i'm quite happy about that because Alex Tew has shown minimum levels of innovation to improve on the million dollar homepage, whilst showing maximum levels of greed in getting money out of advertisers.
he has given advertisers no value for money, and i genuinely feel sorry for anyone who bought pixels. He should give a refund to all advertisers, and then just sink into a little hole in the ground.
The prize fund has certainly dropped.... by $600 no less - so someone has pulled out a $1,200 advert.
Oh dear, oh dear.
how did they do that!! we should all get our money back then!
The biggest of the two ads who were able to get a refund yesterday was for $1000 ($500 prize fund) ad belonged to Alex's brother, Will Tew!
In other words the Tew family has pocketed $500 from the prize fund.
This is starting to look like a fraud to me, and I wouldn't be surprised if the site will be shut down by some legal authority.
Oh my god, I am seriously shocked by that!
How do you know?
Well, just read the blog post by Alexander "Last Pixelotto dropped adverts" and look at the list of refunded ads
bskc.co.uk is the website who just got a refund
3T Racing Ltd is the company that runs the bskc.co.uk (look at whois info or browse bskc.co.uk)
Will Tew is the co-owner of 3T Racing Ltd (see http://www.3tracing.co.uk/about.php). Some might also remember how Tew's brother was one of the first to buy pixels for his karting website on MDHP.
this is shocking news! it should be made public!
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this is shocking news! it should be made public!
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Probably no laws broken, but the backtracking on "cannot refund" is stirring up a legal situation on consumer protection. Again, back to the old view of this as "marketing services promised and not provided". If he says he never promised anything, then just get him to admit in public. If he won't, then he loses. Admitting in public, though, will sort of poison his reputation.
Also in fairness what sort of signal of confidence is it when the people most closely related to the enterprise are taking their money out?
In any case, the refund shows that the statement made in a refund petition earlier printed on this website of "[PL] cannot refund" as opposed to "PL will not refund" is at the very least untrue. Clearly they can, and do.
Legally, I have no idea if you can build a case out of it, maybe you can. The underlying assumptions are
a) his brother actually DID pay money and received a refund (i.e. he wasn't made a present of the space and there isn't some other reason for removing the ad - i.e. sick of server load from worthless traffic, spammer bots etc - though that should not necessarily affect the prize fund is the point made....)
b) this cannot be sorted out by a restatement by PL saying "we should have said we will not, so there"
In any case, the taking of 500 USD from the prize fund which we players on the site are entitled to play for is ethically wrong.
It also shows how shaky the model is : there were assumptions made Day 1 i.e.
1) the fund will reach 1m USD
2) nobody will request a refund
3) no refunds are envisaged in any case whether requested or not
4) the world is made of baaing sheep who like to throw money at me cause I'm me (spoken in AT voice)
5) etc etc
I think that there is cause for some sort of investigation into good faith on AT's part as the sums of money are large, it targets people who are not "sophisticated investors" and this case could help set a precedent for good faith in internet commerce in general.
The last thing any good consumer watchdog wants is a blatant rip off allowed to prosper. There are enough dodgy unregulated "make a million" schemes out there, like MLMs and so forth that started off in relatively grey marketing territory and evolved into outright scams.
So, yeah, have a look into it, nip any issues in the bud, and perhaps make an example.
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Alex will be back. Wait for his e-book, it will be hotter than Harry Potter!
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Dear anonymous : I don't consider Harry Potter as "hot" but your tastes are your prerogative...
Is this taste related to the pansy mini he drives around in...?
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Tew is a money making machine.
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oh really? well that's alright then. clearly we can't believe our own eyes, brains and blatant reality.
Honestly, who in their right minds would buy a e-book from AT? No thinking individuals that's for sure, so I suppose the model is based on the snake oil one. only people desperate enough for a cure to their woes will buy this... And these suckers are born every minute. And consumer watchdogs exists to protect people like this from themselves.
I can see the press release now, founder of the MDHP and brains behind the latest internet gaming craze PL, AT shares his secrets that made him a million dollars in months, and hundreds of thousands in days!
He may conveniently forget to mention that it boiled down to luck and the story being far bigger than he ever will be. and of course how PL is an abject failure for customers and all sales are based on the success of the old "I need to pay my way through college" story that clearly never materialised once he realised how smarter he was than everyone else (at least smarter than old Binksy! we can all agree on that...).
Damnit, Tew, challenge yourself!
Anyways, no doubt his mentors are telling him "look, forget the hassle, stay positive and moving forward, you need a concrete deliverable to work on, so finish the ebook. Once that goes out, attention focuses to that, the press will love the story, and you're money once again!"
I mean, think about it. Some knob in the Guardian or the BBC thinks AT really is smart and promotes him. that's all he needs. And all the righteous pontificating on this blog etc (by me included :) ) matters nothing.
And as far as "somebody should do something by altering a consumer watchdog" well, who will bell the cat?
It could be viewed as a personal attack on someone just cause they are rich. Be careful about the approach you make, stick to basic facts, and don't lose your temper.
the refund is what you seek, not trying to destroy Tew's character publicly. You could fight the wrong fight and turn it around for him.
Grasshopper.
If Tew's brother has pulled out then that should be easily verified via pixelottoreport.com
If its true it's absolutely shocking and suicidal! What on earth is he thinking of?
He might save his brother a couple quid but it will cost him a lot more.
At the end of the day no-one can argue with the facts and if the facts show that he has been "taking prize money" out the fund, then nothing can save him.
Micheal, your earlier comment is probably the best comment on Pixelotto I have read since this all started. Kudos!
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