November 15, 2007 4:58 PM

Deceptive MSN Search Trial Program

I just got an email from MSN Live Search a few minutes ago, inviting me to join their Live Search Trial Program where I can earn "tickets" that are redeemable for cool prizes for every search that I conduct using Internet Explorer and MSN Live Search.

I took a look at the list of prizes and there are some pretty nice things that you can win.

For example, for 20,000 tickets, you can get Windows Vista or a Zune. For 25,000 tickets, you can get Microsoft Office 2007. There's only one little wrinkle. There are 89 days between now and the end of the program (February 12, 2008) and you can only earn a maximum of 50 tickets per day.

While they do promise you 500 bonus tickets upon completion of the program, you can still only earn a possible maximum of 4950 tickets. 50 tickets short of redeeming the Bluetooth keyboard and mouse and impossible to win any of the "nicer" prizes.

I wrote MSN an email to inquire about their conflicting rule and prize structure.

RE: Be rewarded for using Live Search and MSN

Sent: Thu 11/15/07 5:07 PM

Hello Live Search,

I would like to point out that your Live Search Trial Program appears to be deceptive. Since participants can only earn 50 tickets per day and there are only 89 days between now and the end of the program, it is impossible to earn enough "tickets" to redeem the prizes that require 5000 tickets or more.

Winona

RE: Be rewarded for using Live Search and MSN

From: Live Search Trial Customer Service

Sent: Thu 11/15/07 5:24 PM

Hi Winona, thank you for your email, and for reporting this matter. There is an issue with our prize page, in that, it should only be showing prizes worth under 5000 tickets. This has been escalated to our web team, and we expect the page to be updated within 24 hours.

Thank you again for pointing this out. If you have further questions, please email us at: lscstsvc@microsoft.com.

Thank you,

Melanie

Live Search Trial Program Customer Service

So there you have it... the lucrative prizes don't really exist.