Website fails to fulfill promises
By: Meghan Backus
Updated: January 24, 2008
Last February News 8 Now told you about a Fairport company that was giving away a thousand dollars on a website just for clicking on advertisements. Now the owner of the company is in hot water for not making good on the website's promises. After a few people won money, the website suddenly went off-line.
“I started winning in June and never got any money,” said Beatrice Woodhams.
Beatrice visited 1KGiveaway.com for the first time last spring. She heard other people in the area had won some cash on the site and she wanted to try her luck.
“I thought it should be alright,” she said. “It's local, but I guess even local doesn't do a bit of good.”
Beatrice won six times over a period of six months. She even received emails confirming her winnings, but she never received any checks, and she couldn't get in touch with anyone from the company to find out why. The website and its contact information is no longer available.
“If they haven't paid me, how many more people have won and have never got any money?”
News 8 Now has received more than a dozen phone calls and emails from people wondering, where's my money? So we went to find out. We found the president of the company, Tim Maslyn, at his home. He refused to go on camera but told us he couldn't run 1KGiveaway any longer because companies weren't paying the advertising fees for the website, and he was paying winners out of his own pocket.
In a statement he said: “Regretfully, 1KGiveaway.com had to be taken down due to many unfortunate problems that occurred ...that were beyond our control. At no point in time was it ever the intention...to mislead our players and allow things to occur in this manner."
Maslyn did say he hopes to pay previous winners, and would like to get the website up and running again. But Beatrice says if that happens, she will not be playing again.
“No I'm not,” she said. “I'm not going to continue taking and going to people advertised there. Why should I bother?”
Maslyn says some businesses weren't paying for the advertising, but we got a different story from the general manager of Blue Marlin Seafood and Grille, who had an ad on the site. He told us he tried to set up meetings with Maslyn or employees of the company a few times, and no one from 1KGiveaway ever showed.
People who used the website are asked to contact the Better Business Bureau to report any problems.
