Its the real thing (cokeauction.co.uk)

Member Name: wishywalshy

Product:	cokeauction.co.uk
Date:	05/03/01 (312 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: stuff for nothing, they are accepting last years ringpulls and tokens

Disadvantages: too many changes, lousy prizes at the moment, you have to drink gallons and gallons of the stuff to get anything worthwhile, last years credits dont carry over, shall I go on

The coke auction is a scheme run by Coca cola to promote their soft drinks.
Initially begun last year, it claimed this year to be the best ever.
Powered by QXL there is the opportunity to bid for small and trivial items to large expensive ones.

Situated at www.cokeauction.co.uk

Who can participate?
Residents of the United Kingdom, The Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.
Northern Ireland is not eligible to enter.
Employees of Coca Cola or their representatives may not enter the promotion

When does the coke auction begin and terminate?
From 27th Feb 2001 until the final auction on 4th May 2001.

Are here any age limitations?
A person of any age can participate, however for under 16s, a signed consent form is required, which must be posted and processed before bidding may begin.
Only persons of the correct age may bid for age limited items ie15, 18 rated videos, DVDs and computer games

How do I participate in the auction?
By either logging onto the coke auction website and registering
If you were registered last year, you can re-activate your previous account and use your old username (Known as your bidding alias)
Don’t worry if you can't remember your account number there is a facility to remind you of lost passwords simply by entering your email address.
Your password and account number will be emailed to you almost instantaneously.

You can also register by sending your details into the relevant address.
However, the stingy devils do not carry forward any of last years remaining credits that you may not have used.

How do I register?
The registration form needs to be filled out truthfully; otherwise your goodies will be delivered to someone else.
It is a condition of the site that you read the terms and conditions of participation, and that you accept them before you registration can be finalised.
You can change your password once yo
u have registered to do away with silly insignificant letters and numbers.

You may only have one account per person ;o), per email address anyway.

Do I have to buy coke?
The terms and conditions state that no purchase is actually necessary, and that upon registration your account will be credited with 500 coke credits.
Registrations prior to 26th Feb 01 would also have benefited from an addition 200 credits bonus.

Okay, so how do I accumulate more credits?
You can collect red ring pulls on promotional coke auction cans, or tokens on promotional 500ml screw top bottles.

Please note although the auction runs until 4th May, ring pulls and tokens will only be processed if they are received by April 20th 2001.
Last years tokens and ring pulls are also accepted for this auction.

What is each ring pull or token worth?
They have no monetary value, but in credit terms are each worth an additional 100 credits.

How do I forward them to the coke auction?
Once issued with your account number, which is a 6 digit number and a password combined letters and numbers 4 in quantity, you will have access to your account, where you will have the capability to print your own top up forms, or you can just write the details on a piece of paper.
Each batch must consist of 10 tokens, ring pulls, bottle tokens, or a combination of both, and a top up form of some description in an envelope.
The last auction prohibited batches of credit applications, and required one stamp for one batch. Coke have improved this system, and now permit multi applications as long as they are in separate envelopes, you can submit a reasonable amount of credits in one large envelope.
This system makes it far easier and much more economical to send.
They do however recommend that the envelopes contain no more than 10000 credits (100) ring pulls, as the post office treat them as parcels, and make the application difficult to p
rocess resulting in long delays for account crediting. (As my friend discovered)
Upon receipt of your credits, coke auction will notify you that your account has been credited.

How long will that take?
It can take as long as 5 working days, or as little as the next day

So I have some credits now, how do I know what is available to auction?
On the comprehensive website is a list of what is available on auction at that specific time.
Each lot has a finish time and date, and upon clicking on the link will give a description of the goods offered.
There is also a list of previous bids by other users and will give an indication of how much interest is generated by that particular lot.
It will also state what the next bid required to bid successfully is, and the quantity of lots available.
There will also be a statement to define what increments that that the bidding will go up in. ie 50s, 100s, 250s.

How do I bid?
If you decide to bid on an item, you will be required to fill in the relevant fields on the form, which include bidding alias, account number and quantity of credits that you have bid.
If you have ticked the boxes in your profile you will received notification when and if you are outbid.
At the closing stages of each lot, the bidding becomes fast and furious and requires that you constantly refresh the page to see how your bid is doing.

Is the website easy to navigate?
Childs play really.
Greeting you with the familiar scarlet coke red, the site makes things really easy to find.
Unlike last year though, the bids are all on one page, personally I really enjoyed surfing around going into the different categories to see what was available.
It is plastered with adverts though.
The bottom of each pages writing could have done with being a different colour, as it makes it very difficult to read.

Also, note that you are likely to receive junk mail in your email box
unless you have declined QXLs polite request to send you some.

Are there any special features?
Yes there are, each day for one hour only, there is a single lot. This is called Rush hour. Once a week for 4 hours there is another single lots, this is the Gold Rush.

There is also a weekly draw for users who have recommended others in which the prize is a desirable MP3 player.

Everyday, all of the successful bidders go into a hat, and one prize is given to the winner. As yet no one knows what these prizes are.
A list of winners is to be displayed on the news page, but quite frankly I have yet to find that part of the site.

How will I know when some of these special events are happening?
On the homepage the top right corner will flash with notification of times.

So what are they auctioning?
If you ask me, not as good stuff as last year.
In fact I have to say I was highly disappointed with the stock this time around.
There just seems to be mostly junk, and even the rush hour lots are rubbish, so far anyway.
Anyway, back to the opinion. There are videotapes DVDs computer games, make up sets, bum bags, cinema tickets, books etc and a few quality things thrown in for good measure, but in comparison to last year the selection is quite poor.
I just hope that it improves as the auction progresses.

What about delivery of prizes?
A good friend successfully bid on a DVD and received it within 2 days, I am not saying for one-minute hat all deliveries will be as rapid, but on this occasion they surpassed themselves.
Last year the average time was about 2-3 weeks, sometimes quicker, sometimes slower.

In conclusion I feel that coke auction have certainly not bettered themselves this year.
I was sat keyboard ready and poised to bid on the first day of the auction, from around 9am, to my dismay the first lot was not displayed until 10.30pm.
The site looks very similar to last
year, but not as much fun to navigate.
Although it can be seen as something for nothing, think of all the dentists that are gleefully rubbing their hands together at the thought of the decay caused by the pursuit of an online perk, and too of the over stimulated caffeine addict cracking open all of those cans and bottles.

I have been that person seen walikng my child to school scouring the area for discarded coke cans, with some success too!


Update, I actually won a Mission Imposiible 2 DVD for 5600 credits, 56 ringpull to the "normal "person

So I suppose it is improving!

It is a bit of fun, but unless you drink gallons upon gallons of the stuff, don't expect too much for your credits.

Good luck!!

For further details the free phone number is 0800318819.

By the way, I’m head gardener, maybe see you there!!

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