Last week, Aldi ran a sweepstakes called Aldi Blind Box promising to give away mystery boxes of groceries each day for four days at exactly the stroke of noon. It sounded like such a good deal that we promoted it as a “Bargain of the Week” in Consumer World.
At the appointed hour last Monday, MrConsumer along with perhaps thousands of others watched the Aldi clock tick down to zero so we could try to get a box of goodies. After clicking the “claim a box” button, your online cart showed that a box was added to it. Then you had to click a “check out” button and prove you were a human by solving THREE CAPTCHAS, and then later another set of CAPTCHAS. At that point you are told you are in line to check out and for me it said the estimated wait time was 45 minutes.
After patiently waiting three-quarters of an hour, a message popped up saying they were all sold out!
Say what?
Soon after Monday’s giveaway we received a complaint from a regular reader who experienced the exact same thing. She commented, “I wasted 42 minutes believing that Aldi was going to honor my place in line.” Some other people said they got as far as entering their shipping information but then received a “sold out” message.
Immediately, we wrote to Aldi’s PR people complaining about the misleading nature of the promotion because it gave entrants the impression that a free box was in their cart and that they were just waiting in line to check out. We asked many pointed questions including how they were going to make good for the thousands of customers they disappointed. They only answered that question as noted below.
In addition, it appears that Aldi may have violated state and federal sweepstakes laws that require disclosing “official rules” of giveaways like this. A review of the Internet Archive reveals that they did not make this disclosure prior to the Monday drawing, but did so in time for the ones after that.
A glutton for punishment, MrConsumer returned on day two of the promotion where the process remained the same except the wait time was reduced to just four minutes seemingly. However, when the four minutes elapsed, the wait time reset to 30 minutes, followed by the inevitable “sold out” message! The video below shows the process in actual time.
By day three of the promotion, the company finally decided to explain to participants how the promotion worked in detail. Duh.
*MOUSE PRINT:
This promotion has resulted in a deluge of complaints and comments being posted online — over 10,000 on Aldi’s Instagram alone — and rightfully so. [Account needed to read Instagram.]
Part of the problem was that despite having 2,684 stores in the United States, Aldi only made available 84 – 92 boxes a day (without disclosing that to participants initially), and chose an entry system that inconvenienced and misled their customers. They should pay a price for that, both monetarily and legally.
After the fourth and final day of the planned giveaway, Aldi announced a make good of sorts — an unscheduled fifth day of mystery box giveaways, wherein the company would offer 5,000 free boxes but still using the same cockamamie system.
In making the announcement, Aldi said they were doing it “because when the fans get loud, ALDI responds with an encore.” Get loud? They really meant “complain.”
How did the 5,000 box giveaway turn out? No different. Despite entering the site before noon, clicking the “claim a box” button as soon as it appeared adding the mystery box to my cart, the countdown clock to check out said 4 minutes. After hitting zero, it reset to 22 minutes. And after hitting zero again it reset to 17 minutes. And after hitting zero again it reset to 12 minutes. And when it hit zero for a fourth time (a total of 55 minutes waiting in queue), here’s what MrConsumer (and others) saw:
As one poster said on Instagram after Friday’s make-good farce:
Today’s was the biggest joke of them all… Never again… I have wasted 2-1/2 hours on this.
Same thing for me but thankfully my wait in the fake ‘cue’ was only 6 minutes. Fooled me once on the first day and didn’t come back.
Echoes of the the free dinner for a year by Applebee’s which worked the same way with the same results. Company’s should be required to state how many ‘prizes’ are available when advertising these things.
Just as a matter of curiosity, Mr. Consumer, do you or does anyone else happen to know, for those happy few (if any) who actually won a prize, what was in the mystery box? A box of Kleenex? A can of peas? A frozen dinner? A potato?
Dave… Some in the media got free boxes sent to them in advance (not me). There were five different “themes” like snacks, protein, fiber, etc. One media person posted the contents of the snack boxes showing several types of potato chips, pretzels, cookies, coconut clusters, and pita chips. According to the official rules, the total retail value of each box was around $50.
Thanks, Mr. Consumer.
Potato chips? As Jeff Spicoli might have put it, “Totally bogus!”
The “groceries” you list proves the word has lost all meaning. I see nothing but highly-processed junk snacks.
Only in rare cases is anything REALLY free.
I just finished laughing at the fool who wasted 2 1/2 hours on this.
I shop at Aldi in Oneonta, NY. I didn’t see anything about their Blind Box. I simply bought my groceries for less, and left.
Ignorance is bliss, as is tunnel vision. 🙂
Having 84 – 92 boxes a day makes it like a lottery here.
As I recall, sweepstakes also must not require a purchase in order to enter.
Otherwise, it’s not a legal sweepstakes.
Having to be in a checkout line to receive your Blind Box implies purchases had to be made.
What did I miss? Could one stand in the checkout with an empty cart?
Marty… The item (the box) is free, but you have to go through a checkout process to add your name and address for delivery. So no purchase was necessary… so it was legal from that standpoint.
Thanks for the clarification. But sadly, Aldi has entered the snake den of retailers, IMO.
Reminds me of pre-amazon woot.com (bags of crap) and meh.com (instant regret “kit). Those were fun and sold out in seconds. I stopped trying for an IRK after seldom winning one, and when I did, got nothing useful. I used to be there was at least one useful thing in it.
Wow, I’m glad I got an immediate sold out notice when I tried. This really lowered my opinion of Aldi, though.
Very frustrating. Is there legal action in place to get reparations for time wasted?
Rob… it would be very unlikely that a judge compensate for wasted time (which as colossal). For the misleading nature of the setup, perhaps, but judges in consumer cases often look for actual harm rather than disappointment, wasted time, and mental distress.
The ALDI story of the blind box giveaway is an exact image of the U.S. Mint selling bags/rolls of special 2026 Semisesq. issues on their web site. You have to be put into a holding pattern like aircraft waiting to land and then the clock counts down, from 15 minutes to you are in, and after you get in you have 10 minutes to complete the order.
So I get in start filling out the forms and suddenly at the end it tells me to remove the products, they are no longer available. Ok, there is a link to click on to enter email/phone no. and you will get a email/text message when product is back available.
I get the message and same story, after I’m in, filled out the form and it says please remove product, it is no longer available. Again you can enter email/phone no. and you will be contacted when product is available again.
By the way this product has no limit on amount available it must be they just can’t produce enough to have on hand… I guess.
So beware, ALDI and the Mint are examples of more “throw in the towel” events to be seen.
This is just going to be bad PR for Aldi, I’m not sure what even their plan was here.
They could have just as easily done a sweepstakes where anyone who wants to can sign up and then they pick winners based on email and email them.
The thought of getting something free, really clouds ones judgement. A number of years ago,the county I live in was giving away old Mac Books that students used. I happened to be near where they were giving them away and there was a line of cars a mile long. I said to myself, nope, not worth it.
A lot of times the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
They could not have handled this giveaway in a worse fashion. As much as I hate to use them as an example, they should have done like Ticketmaster. Where as soon as you click, the ticket is reserved for 15 minutes or whatever while you check out.
Poorly done, Aldi. Do better.