If you read the title and were a little confused about when I ran a contest, I don’t blame you. Many months ago I ran a contest. I’ve been waiting until the prizes were given out to announce the winners. I had hoped to include another mention of the book, so that the promotional company would get addition bang for their buck. However, I would be doing that for reasons that will soon be clear.

I typically don’t like to run contests for various reasons that I listed. However, since the prize was being offered to me for free, I figured I could turn it into a win-win-win situation. The publishing company of the book around the contest got publicity, I got a little traffic, and a reader gets a $200 designer briefcase. What did someone once say about the best laid plans?

Everything went smoothly until it was time for Sideways Media to hand out the prizes. Here’s what I went through after I submitted the list of winners on July 30th:

• I was initially told that the prizes would be shipped out the week of Jul 30th.
• August 6th, I got word that the books were promotional copies and not real ones, so there would be a delay in getting them.
• August 20th, I asked again for the progress. The briefcase that they received was damaged, so it had to be sent back.
• September 7th, I inquired again, hoping to wrap up the contest. This request was ignored
• September 24th, I sent another inquiry, but my contact said she had been overseas for a couple of months and email is “tricky.” Also, “Everything should have been taken care of by the publisher months ago.”
• I informed her on the September 25th that the winner said he didn’t receive his prize. My contact promised to check tracking numbers and get it “solved ASAP.”
• October 2nd, I ask how the tracking numbers are coming along since I haven’t received them. I try to give a deadline by asking for them by the end of day tomorrow. At this point I figure it can’t hurt
• October 5th, she said that she wasn’t able to information from the publishers, but that she was going to go out that weekend and buy the books and briefcase and that Sideway Media “will cover the costs of everything.” This is fantastic news to me because finally someone is taking responsibility. I still want to make sure people get their prizes, so I ask for tracking numbers as they are sent out.
• November 14th, (I was away on vacation and it simply slipped my mind a bit) I check back, not having received any of the promised tracking numbers. I get a response back that she’ll “check with the prizing partner.” This confuses me greatly since she was going to buy the briefcase and books herself.
• November 17th, I remind her that she was to buy the prizes herself.
• November 21st, after receiving no response to my Nov. 17th, I try again
• November 26th, I finally decide to CC the winner on the e-mail so that he can see what I went through. This finally does it and I get the FedEx tracking number of it finally being shipped out.

I really hope that Ryan in Ohio enjoys his briefcase. It looks like it was dropped off at his home earlier today. If I were him I’d think about taking the briefcase to Sideways Media and bonking them on the head. I’m joking, I would never recommend assault someone. At the same time, can you blame both Ryan and I for being frustrated at their lack of professionalism? I’m happy to give a couple a few strikes, but before you have 7 or 8 mix-ups, you have to take things into your own hands and solve it.

Interesting stats: The e-mail thread has two, “I apologizes” and four, “I’m sorry”s from my contact at Sideways Media.

I learned two things from this. The first is to not outsource the prize fulfillment. I did this to protect my real address, but in retrospect, that should have been a risk I took. The second lesson is to not run contests. It seems like there’s a lot of potential legal snafus with them. Other bloggers have the great idea of just giving away prizes at random or to great commenters. I’m currently not financially in a position to do such a thing, but this sounds like the smart way to go.

Yesterday I wrote about free tacos from Taco Bell (available today), but that’s small potatoes. The real winners are Jordan’s Furniture customers who took advantage of a furniture promotion. The promotion offered to refund all the customers’ money if the Red Sox won the World Series.

Now thousands of people are cashing in to the tune of more than $15M. Jordan’s Furniture doesn’t have to bear the brunt of the promotion. They bought insurance, so it’s the insurance company that has to pay up. When I live in Boston, I had always bought my furniture from Bob’s, but that promotion would have been tempting for me.

When I considered buying an Ellsbury jersey back in July, I had no idea that he’d be giving me (and the rest of America) a free taco. Allow me to explain…

Taco Bell ran a promotion for free taco’s during the World Series. If there was a stolen base, they’d give America a free Taco. You can read more about it here. Since Jacoby Ellsbury (Tacoby Bellsbury is his new nickname) stole a base, Taco Bell is making good on it’s promise. You can collect your free taco tomorrow (Tuesday) from 2-5PM.

I don’t want it to get lost in the shuffle, but this was a great business idea by Taco Bell. They got a lot of premium advertising time and many people probably will have difficulty collecting their free taco due to the timing of the promotion.

Lastly, you really shouldn’t scam Taco Bell to get multiple free tacos. This would include scams such as going to the counter and then the drive through to get different people. This would also include not going right at 2PM and then again at 4:30 where they might not remember you. This would also include going to multiple Taco Bells or even wearing different disguises so that they don’t recognize you. So save that Disco Stu costume for Halloween, not for Taco Bell… Really… I mean it…

Here’s a reminder that the contest that I started a month ago ends tonight. There’s a $200 value grand prize at stake. As of this writing there are around 50 people who have entered. I believe only one person has taken the option to review my site for the extra entries. What this all means is that you probably still have a very good chance of winning if you enter today. To enter just read the rules and follow the directions.

Many personal finance sites run contests and giveaways to give something back to their readers. I’ve been hesitant to do this for three major reasons:

1. I’m extraordinarily stingy
2. I hate to put something in the mail system without a name and return address. At the same time, I don’t want to use my own to protect my anonymity.
3. I’m fearful that one bad egg will point out that missed some technicality required to run contests that I missed.

I’ve been given an opportunity that solves most of these problems. The kind people at Warner Books want to promote The Last Chance Millionaire by Douglas Andrew. The book is written primarily towards American baby boomers and how they can adjust their financial strategies to achieve a stable, successful retirement. At least that’s what I’m told, I haven’t gotten a chance to read the book yet. Warner Books, and it’s public relations first, is going to be insulating me from most of the work with running the contest – which fits into the Lazy philosophy. They are providing and shipping the prizes – they even offered some legalize but assured me that for prizes under $500 there’s no legalize necessary.

I know what you are thinking… “enough with this, get to the prizes already…” Here you go:

Grand Prize – A high-end leather briefcase from one of the Sideways Media’s partners (who include Tumi, Jack Spade, Latico Leathers, and Landmark Luggage) – retail value of $200. You’ll also get a copy of The Last Chance Millionaire to fill up that briefcase.
Runner up Prizes – A copy of The Last Chance Millionaire. Three of these prizes will be awarded.

How do you enter to win? There are two ways… The first way is to simply leave a comment here. To encourage some interesting comments, I’ll give two entries for comments that:

1. Make me laugh (keep it clean though)
2. Tell me why you should win (even though it’s a random drawing)
3. Anything else that seems interesting to me (my wild card, catch-all)

The other way to enter is by writing an honest review of Lazy Man and Money on your website/blog/etc. linking to the homepage or this contest page. It doesn’t have to be a positive review. I don’t mind negative reviews, especially if there’s something constructive I can learn from the review. After you’ve published your review, send me an e-mail with the URL of it I’ll record your entries. You’ll receive FOUR entries for this. If you don’t send me an e-mail, I won’t know about your review and you won’t get credit.

The Rules
– Only one comment entry per person – I’ll delete repeat comments.
– Reviews must be 100 words minimum.
– Reviews be a stand-alone – the entire post/page/etc. must be devoted to just the review, not sharing space with another topic.
– Reviews must come from established websites with substantial content, not your MySpace page or anything like that.
– Contest is open to the United States residents and mail addresses only. This is a limitation based on the shipping of prizes.
– One prize per person
– Prizes are awarded by Warner Books and their public relations company Sideways Media. If there are problems with the awarding of prizes, I will work to try resolve the issue with Sideways Media. I do not take responsibility for any problems with the prizes.
– I hold the right to add more (or eliminate) conditions to these rules.

At midnight PST on July 27th (they requested a minimum 30-day contest), I’ll close the contest. I will then assign everyone a number (or numbers) based on their entries and pick winners using Random.org.

On a serious note, I’m not that “extraordinarily stingy.” I’d just rather give my money to charity than buy a briefcase and give it away.