Scope Month 2017 Megathread

[FireFlower]

Seems like keysight confirmed with email that my W-8BEN form is correct, according to email all items scopes ship from USA & after the contest.


Also here is a instruction how to fill W-8BEN form when you're not citizen of USA, live there or have business there and you don't do business either in your own home country. And your country has made a tax treaty pact with USA and articles are in same order (use google: #your_country and usa tax treaty, check if article 21 is other income

and I am wrong with this then I can only say sorry for that


And thanks for everybody who congratulated me, good luck for next draws.

[Keysight DanielBogdanoff]

I am also in the game, everything works fine with the website. Do you guys got an email confirmation for partecipating? I am worried my company Spam filter is blocking them out... 

Nope.

What confuses me is that i can still enter the contest each day with a not listed country (and enter my own country name). What actually happens with these entries? Are they included in the draw or are they disregarded immediately? If disregarded, why is this not mentioned when entering? Now i get a message saying ive successfully entered the contest. Seems a bit unfair, proving false hope only?

I believe Daniel added the Other-option to avoid answering the "Why is $COUNTRY$ not listed?!" and apparently traded that for "Why is $COUNTRY$ not eligible?". These entries are disregarded since they are unfortunately not valid per the rules of the contest.

No confirmation e-mail, for reasons. 

The "other" option was originally a make-Daniel's-life-easier decision that essentially didn't get me any more time back. But, I definitely will be looking at the "other" field's distribution and seeing if there's anything we can do to include those countries (no promises!). But, the gentle lobbying that was done by the Australia folks last year was a big reason why we included them this year - it wasn't just a Dave thing.

[Someone]

One scope for eevblog user 

Amazing! 

And congrats of course 

Makes you wonder how many people actually compete each day? If out of 20 scopes already given away, one has gone to a pool of about 200 eevblog users (rough estimation based on eevblogs own giveaway contest), then there must be only a couple of thousand participants in the Keysight contest. With 125 total scopes to win the odds are actually not very bad at all! Wish i lived in an eligible country though... 

What confuses me is that i can still enter the contest each day with a not listed country (and enter my own country name). What actually happens with these entries? Are they included in the draw or are they disregarded immediately? If disregarded, why is this not mentioned when entering? Now i get a message saying ive successfully entered the contest. Seems a bit unfair, proving false hope only?

The maths are even better for the Australian competition, with 10 scopes going out to a much smaller population than 1/10th of the larger contest.

[bitseeker]

No confirmation e-mail, for reasons. 

Yeah, a form with an email field that sends messages to said address is ripe for abuse. The confirmation page is sufficient.

[Brumby]

Ahem.

One SMALL problem with the Australian competition - specifically the email notifications.

Keysight has broadcast the email address of everybody who signed up for notifications to everybody who signed up for notifications.

Keysight has been short-sighted by not using BCC for the notifications.  I already have a conversation going on in my inbox!

[Brumby]

This has the potential to cause me some grief.

I used a particular email address because I already had remote notifications set up for it.  I did this after lengthy consideration, since it is not an email address I can use at my leisure.  With a single email a week, it was not a big problem - but with several a day, it has the potential to bury important business emails.


Not ... happy ... Jan.

[aargee]

Yes, just got that email reminder as well, along with everyone else email addresses.

Keysight tries hard but really? ... the whole thing is very amateurish. FFS

What is their privacy statement regarding this?

<Note: I will accept a guaranteed free scope in payment for losing an email address>

[amitchell]

Ouch, was it Keysights mistake or did they hire it out to Price Waterhouse?

Ahem.

One SMALL problem with the Australian competition - specifically the email notifications.

Keysight has broadcast the email address of everybody who signed up for notifications to everybody who signed up for notifications.

Keysight has been short-sighted by not using BCC for the notifications.  I already have a conversation going on in my inbox!

[TheSteve]

Well that is a pretty massive FUBAR isn't it.

I guess you guys can calculate your odds of winning now...

[Keysight DanielBogdanoff]

We take privacy seriously. I've alerted the team and we will be working around the clock to fix it. FYI, this isn't the entire list (the # of names is too small).

I don't know the legalese around what I can/can't say, but allow me as Daniel (and not officially as Keysight) to apologize for any trouble this may cause you.

[Brumby]

My count was 123 email addresses - which I did think seemed a bit small.

It is certainly a breach of privacy - and it's not as if the privacy considerations in bulk email sending are rocket science.  The BCC solution has been around for ages.

By all means, pass it on - but someone needs a kick in the pants.

[DimitriP]

................. The BCC solution has been around for ages.

By all means, pass it on - but someone needs a kick in the pants.

Which part of "spread" or "fast" is not clear to you ? 
No messing around: The spread it as fast as  possible.

[carl_lab]

One question to Daniel:
If I register twice on one day by mistake (I thought time zone is PST instead of MST) will the second registration just be ignored or will I be disqualified for this day?

[Muttley Snickers]

I still don’t know if I am included in today’s draw or not and whether I might be disqualified for submitting multiple entries, after entering a valid answer and submitting all of my details then completing the captcha thing no confirmation of acceptance was ever indicated and I was simply returned to the previous page without a clue as to my entry status. The terms and conditions of entry do declare that only one entry is permissible but as I didn’t know if any of the entries were accepted I just continued to submit additional entries all with the same information.

The screen grabs below will confirm that I was on the correct page at the time but the lack of feedback from the site on this occasion was rather annoying to say the least, I was pretty sure that last weeks entry displayed a thank you for your entry message or similar but this week I got nothing to that effect so am still none the wiser, did anyone else have the same experience today with the Australian draw?. 

[Muttley Snickers]

Just another screen grab below that I saved two minutes out from the start to verify that I was ready and waiting for a chance. 

[Platinum_Jello]

Keysight tries hard but really? ... the whole thing is very amateurish. FFS

I was just thinking to myself today that the whole contest/event is really quite casual for such a large company, which is something I absolutely love about it. It's all more tangible and I feel more engaged than if it was some sterile, highly polished, sealed-envelope contest. I feel like I have more of a chance this way for some reason, which makes it more fun to play along.

As for the goof, I get not being thrilled, but I think some deep breaths are in order. If you're using a highly sensitive or guarded email address for entering a contest that is so obviously a marketing event, you share a teeny little bit of the responsibility here. Now if you're using all of your email addresses to get more entries into the pool, I hope your precious email address is sold like a $3.....

Anyway, deep breaths, little Fonzies. 

[Muttley Snickers]

Just to ensure that nothing was wrong my end I returned to the competition page just now and submitted another entry with just random details and this time it was accepted with a confirmation note whereas earlier in the day I never received the thank you message and was simply redirected to the previous entry page without guidance or direction, a wasted opportunity by the look of it.     

[MrBungle]

FYI, this isn't the entire list (the # of names is too small).

Seems that not only did I somehow dodge that bullet, but I didn't get an email at all... 

[S13]

I will send you $100 CAD if I win, so consider yourself semi-entered.
I think that box is a design mistake, they will not use those entries (was mentioned in this thread or another).

Thank you!

[madires]

One question to Daniel:
If I register twice on one day by mistake (I thought time zone is PST instead of MST) will the second registration just be ignored or will I be disqualified for this day?

The web page seems to check if there's already an entry for the same day in mountain time zone (UTC-7). I've stumbled across an error message after entering in the morning (local time) before the 12am day reset (8pm in Germany) and trying to enter in the night for the next day after the 12am day reset, but both entries were at the same day in mountain time zone (different days here). This morning I was able to enter again. So the FAQ isn't quite correct about the day reset. You have to wait until the next day in mountain time zone, and not the 12am day reset.

[S13]

The "other" option was originally a make-Daniel's-life-easier decision that essentially didn't get me any more time back. But, I definitely will be looking at the "other" field's distribution and seeing if there's anything we can do to include those countries (no promises!). But, the gentle lobbying that was done by the Australia folks last year was a big reason why we included them this year - it wasn't just a Dave thing.

Very good to know! 
I will be entering loyally each day then, and hope that the Netherlands will be included in the next give aways.
Please dont overlook our small country Daniel!   

[carl_lab]

One question to Daniel:
If I register twice on one day by mistake (I thought time zone is PST instead of MST) will the second registration just be ignored or will I be disqualified for this day?

The web page seems to check if there's already an entry for the same day in mountain time zone (UTC-7). I've stumbled across an error message after entering in the morning (local time) before the 12am day reset (8pm in Germany) and trying to enter in the night for the next day after the 12am day reset, but both entries were at the same day in mountain time zone (different days here). This morning I was able to enter again. So the FAQ isn't quite correct about the day reset. You have to wait until the next day in mountain time zone, and not the 12am day reset.

So you are saying you can try to register as often as you like, first registration within the "day limits" is counted, and following attempts are rejected without disqualification?

[Keysight DanielBogdanoff]

For the overall sweepstakes, you are allowed one entry per person per day. The form itself is based on e-mail address, so it won't let you enter more than once per day with an identical e-mail. If you try more than once per day, you'll get an error.

For the Australia contest, I believe the form looks for anything different in any of the fields. Because that contest is based on first-to-answer-correct instead of random-draw-of-all-entries there's nothing that will disqualify you for answering & submitting more than once.

[VE7FIM]

Daniel, looks like the competition captcha I got is suggesting you're in Brisbane: 

[bitseeker]

That's hilarious. Nice catch.