Gabriel F.

Hello everyone!

Time to show some VB facts here!

You know that contest you got Top 10, 20, 30 or whatever? Good sad news for you: most of these results are completely random, unchecked and most of them even mathematically impossible. I will post here two examples, but I have many others saved in case I need:

Recently we have the "Sensual & Sexy" finalists announced, and 100% of them are incredibly wonderful photos, pretty sure any of them would be great winners.

BUT:

I don´t know about you, but the contest theme suggests that many entries may have been marked with the Adult Filter content, which is perfectly natural on this case.On the other hand, any fair contest based on online voting gives a balanced exposure for most of the entries on the voting screens, even with a voting link available for us to ask for some votes for friends and contacts, right?

NOPE! Take a look:

=============================

JUN 27,2019 | 05:34PM PDT

VB Customer Care replied:

Hi Gabriel,

Thank you for your participation in the ViewBug community.

We are truly sorry for the inconvenience. While unfortunately, we are unable to provide you with the total number of votes that each photo received, we have reviewed the entries and we see that 4 of them are marked with the Adult Content filter. As you can imagine, many of our members have the option to see these photos active and therefore could not view these entries. Additionally, photos with said filter are not displayed in our apps, which now play a big role in our community.

We see that your entry with the highest ranking was in fact the photo that does not have the Adult Content filter.

Please remeber that the rankings are based on votes received by members and that these will only count towards the People's Choice Winner.

Please let us know if you have additional questions or concerns.

Thank you and have a great day,

Your friends at ViewBug

===============================

I asked VB for the exact total number of votes on my entries, as their positions were terribly bad. It was already a bad surprise that they don´t have a record of how many votes you got, but even worst: 4 of my 5 photos were not even saw by voters, due to the Adult Filter. I even marked some off-topic photos that got higher (unfocused selfies on a restaurant drinking some coffee, "extremely sensual") and well, I had to get OK with the fact that my opinion and pointing this issue were not even considered to review some policies for this specific contest. Even with this vague reply about the votes numbers and the ridiculous idea to open this kind of contest limiting the exposure of Adult Filter, now comes the real bad part, what really mattters. CONTINUING:

When I open my results on APP, I get a message like this one:

Yout photo ended ahead of 358!

Same photo, on desktop: ahead of 59!

What Viewbug says about it:

VB Customer Care replied:

Hi Gabriel,

Thank you for your patience.

Our technical team has now identified the origin of this issue and will now begin working to resolve it. The update with the correction will be implemented as soon as it's ready.

Please let us know if you have additional questions or concerns.

Thank you and have a great day,

Your friends at ViewBug

===============================

Almost a week later, finalists announced WITH VB AWARE THAT THERE WERE FAILURES ON VOTING SYSTEM/RESULTS and this bug persists! :) I can´t consider it a serious contest if the finalists were chosen with the judges/company knowing that there were errors on the votes counting.

But, but, but, BUT, worst part: since MAY/2018 i´ve been proving and they AGREED that there were some major failures on many other contests. Examples:

On February, I got two pics on the same position. It was the 8TH time I was proving them that there were errors on the voting system and counting:

========================================

FEB 08,2019 | 12:13PM PST

VB Customer Care replied:

Hello Gabriel,

Thank you for your reply.

We have forwarded your email to our technical department for review. We will contact you via email as soon as we receive a response.

Thank you for your patience and have an excellent day.

Your friends at ViewBug

FEB 08,2019 | 07:12AM PST

Gabriel replied:

Looks like your bug got even worst now:

https://www.viewbug.com/contests/technology-photo-contest-2018/*******

Your photo is in the top 30% most voted.

Your photo placed ahead of 4,563 submissions.

https://www.viewbug.com/contests/technology-photo-contest-2018/*******

Your photo is in the top 30% most voted.

Your photo placed ahead of 4,563 submissions.

What happened this time (8th time btw...)...? Two photos, same number of votes and SAME POSITION? LOL?!

Gabriel Fox

==========================

So, as I promised to VB: as they are unable to fix their own system for over a year now, and as they keep on delivering false results (more than once I got 5 pics in a row, like 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5th place! LOL!), I think it´s time to spread the word that even if you are an user with paid subscription, you can´t count and trust on their team and system.

First time I exposed their errors, btw, they decided to solve my 3months problem in 5 minutes: I won a Contest in February and they gave themselves 5 weeks to send the prize or the value in Paypal. The only excuse I got after these 5 weeks waiting was that "an error ocurred on Paypal" and they were solving it. The errors was basically that my account as many others here in S. America can receive certain amounts only as Service Payment, what can be solved with a single click or even a phone call to Paypal FROM VB (as they were the ones facing the error on the screen, not me!). A few posts on their facebook, instagram and more and BOOM suddenly it was fixed!: D

Let´s see how they will perform now on their own forum as I pasted there at least two contests with a lot of unmatching results and I have at least 5 more here waiting for another "We have forwarded your email to our technical department for review. We will contact you via email as soon as we receive a response" that never solves a thing!: D

Looks like here in Sitejabber they don´t even care to reply, so... don´t lose your time registering there or buying a Pro plan :]

Get ready to upload your best shots! Then, see all of them 'losing votes' for iPhone pics of naked ladies in the mirror, random landscapes and a lot of out of focus stuff. Most the "Pic of the Day" awards are merely a note that you got a lot of votes against the selfies avalanche and in fact, you´re awarded with 0$ for it. Their "weekly money awards" happens only when you have tons of users competing and, naturally, a good sponsor (what is really not happening frequently, considering their 1 star review everywhere).

AH! Don´t forget that if you are with a #1 pic on any category, there´s a team of users [most of them based somewhere in Asia] ready to report your pic as 'wrong category' or something else and, naturally, Pixoto team moves it out of the contest, e-mail you asking if you are the real author/user, and whatever else absurd you can imagine.

This is the only contest site that you can upload 10x or more the same photo on the same contest and nothing happens if your 'friends' from distant lands don´t report your pics. Dreaming with photo contests, for real? Go to a museum, gallery, but avoid Pixoto.