Unless you don’t watch television, you can’t have failed to have caught one of the adverts for the short term loan company Wonga.com featuring the OAP puppets, Betty, Earl and Joyce. Betty is currently doing bingo in an effort to promote their brand and whilst I love bingo, I’ve been having an internal debate as to whether to write this news article.
The game Betty’s Bingo is free to enter, you aren’t required to take a loan but for me there is a moral question as to whether a short term loan company that has representative APR of 4214% shown on their home page should be using bingo, a form of gambling, to advertise their wares.
The promotion ends tomorrow but to take part you have to first ‘Like’ the page that is then advertised to all of your Facebook friends. Free advertising….
The Terms and Conditions of the promotion also state that you do not ever have ever taken a loan in order to enter and you are not required to take one to play the game, you simply have to be a UK resident, be 18 and then have either:
- Been emailed a bingo card by Wonga
- Authorised the app through Facebook
- Clicked a link on a wall post from a friend on Facebook
- Clicked a link through a friend invitation on Facebook
- Clicked a tweet from someone you follow on Twitter.
To play you are then given a card and each day four numbers will be selected every business day until Friday 8th February at midday. You can get extra cards by sharing via Twitter and Facebook but I found myself checking out the game on a Facebook account that is not associated with my personal name, simply because of the stigma attached to the name of Wonga.com, there is no way I would want my friends to think that I had a need for the brands services! Snobby? Maybe but I doubt I am the only person to feel that way.
Would you be willing to share the following page with your friends on Facebook or would you find yourself being a little snobbish like me?
Bingo by Betty from Wonga.com
