Waah ustaad waah!!!

it’s definitely one of those Kodak moments!!! Embarrassingly so…. well i sure hope they can rise above all this and carry on with life this sort of a public exposure can really break people…. then again thick skinned ones might not be affected…..

they just dont have the spirit.  even if for some reason they make it further they cannot win the contest.

Hi,
We do agree , this is embarassingly obscene.

People literally forgot to enjoy the journey in their dash to top the vote list. But the most used phrase was ‘’ its the journey which matters….’‘.

Let me say the contest is not flawed , its because of some bad apples that we have a situation here.

If you want our verdict, let us just say ‘the answer is obvious….’‘

Anand & Nischala

Keeping the spirit of the game in mind,  we would request the jury to not give weightage to this kind of vote gathering technique. We would rather lose honourably than win by deceit. Takes the whole fun out of this game!

I am sure there are many sham contestants like these. On a lighter note, the only good thing it may have done is nudge us to campaign stronger seeing those crazy digits.

this is shocking and embaraissing at the same time.guess the spirit got lost somwhere to just get the votes,by hook or crook.

it is never a GREAT VOTE ON MY BLOG COMPETITON any which ways.

we got through on the last day ,16 july and were able to gather meagre 117 votes.but we are content and satisfied with the effort.

though we did try GET 2 GIVE 1 VOTE scheme in desperation and got 1 vote ;]

i believe the TGDC concept of voting is much deeper than the no of votes.

and would be glad if we are proven correct.
cheers
smita and jagdeep

This is appalling!! How can a couple steep so low for a contest!! I voted for my friends Amit and Jace, and watching this couple steal their testimonial is sheerly disgusting!

I appreciate you choosing to expose them and wish that “this starry couple” learns its lesson and issues a public apology to TGDC , Amit and Jace and also the rest of contestants for such misdemeanor.

Regards,
Shailee

Agree on the comment above ^

I do agree that this should not happen. I feel getting more and more votes should not be the only criteria for selection of the finalists. This way the IT related people will only be shortlisted.

no words….......
i applied on 14th july and if voting is only criteria than my handsup…..........

Aaaah I see you guys toned down the post and removed the picture of (aaa & bbb)...... also it’s a lot less flamboyant…..

I can understand the initial tone and the new tone phenomenon quite a bit. I work with security incidents quite frequently (like handling/investigating/fixing a hacked server every day types) and the sudden exhilaration upon discovering the rascals who did it and then flogging them publicly is pure adrenalin. Then as things settle down you figure it could destroy the life of a poor kid who discovered a security hole and poked his finger in, might end up broken for life if you publish his details to the net. So you tone down the report remove names and make it a little less obvious. I mean for people who want to they can still figure out (..) but then why make it blatantly “in your face”.

I like the voice of sanity in the group whoever it is who suggested and in fact proved that this could hurt the guys more than TGDC would care to….. good job and hey I’m sure you guys discovered more such incidents do post it’s interesting read till the results come out on monday…. for instance look into my application and tell me which of my friends voted more than once…. Ahmad I know did vote 4 times, then prbly Ajinkya…. aaah well there should’ve been a way to allow us to look at the email addresses and clean the list…. anyways… lemme know if you guys need a hand with the forensics I would love to swing by and join the fun…. can actually picture you guys huddled over spread sheets and then the collective cry of “saal&@#@# c*@#$” when you observe a pattern and connect the dots on a contestants voting scam :D…. truly priceless.

those who dont belive on own strengths, take support of these cruches

I am sure TGDC team would have by now realized that this couple is not alone. With all your systems for logging and analysing, you would have by now seen that many more couples have adopted similar means to ‘rise above the rest.’
But the question here for the TGDC team to decide is “Is this a contest of Driving/ Travel Passion or a contest of popularity?”
For the benefit of the other contestants, I would like to mention here that we are in the IT industry. Armed with Harsha’s techie knowledge, hiring a couple of guys the last couple of days to do some manual labour was all it would have taken for us to be among the so-called-creme de la creme in the popularity game.
But being the people we are, seeing some glimmer of hope in a number of posts by Sandip and the rest of the TGDC team, we decided to stay ‘good.’
The result is 470-odd votes and nowhere near the top. But the journey has been so wonderful so far. As we left the TGDC team to battle with the ‘starry couples’ our minds were free to sit and write some of our travel blogs in detail which were just points in my travel diary.
At the end of this phase, we are so so contented about having done this part. Thanks to this contest we have now such a wonderful Travel Blog which wouldn’t have happened otherwise, despite umpteen constant requests from our friends to do so.
Like us, I’m sure there are many contestants true to their passion of travel and driving. If this is a true contest of travel and driving, then we all would be meeting each other.
On that note, I would sign off and let the TGDC team decide.

Having been on the other side of the fence on many occasions, we have seen several competitors ‘lose’ though they were well within the framework of the contest.
This was because… just for ‘elimination’ to be made easy the jury/ the organizing company/ sponsor whoever, would bring in rules to eliminate numbers by the dozen, rules which in most cases didn’t align with the broader theme of the competition.
I sure hope this whole issue of voting and popularity is not a means for elimination, rather than selection.
I hope TGDC is still about getting behind the wheel, burning rubber and a passion for travel.

Well obviously they need to be given the boot. Amazes me what all people are willing to do for their share of 15 minutes of fame.

Well Done TGDC!!!! These type of bad acts will be found everywhere…..the +ve and motivational part is TGDC team have kept all eye on this….and there system is just awesome…

WE TRUST YOU TGDC…..YOU WILL DEFINITELY SELECT THE DESERVING CANDIDATES….

Well I know I know….ofcourse Other than me coz i’m already in .... dreaming myself with Neha in our cedia and all set to vrooooooooooooooommmmmmmmm!!!! 

Good work TGDC team

Hey for Divya & myself, its been and exhilerating couple of days. She found out about this contest only several days before the close of applications. we applied and started sending out requests to all our friends in a mad frenzy. But over the few days, we did some homework too and figured if votes be the be all and end all of this contest, we stood a ‘snowballs chance in hell’. but reading the TGDC blog, we believed that votes, though a factor would only be one of them in selecting the shortlisted couples.

My hopes were pined on the fact that blogging and photography were part of our application.

So if TGDC is fair in its selection, they’ll select candidates with a application that is well rounded and balanced.

Rohit

Give the devil their dues. They must have really desperate but alas…..

They must’ve been really thrilled till now but now their game is up. But they should have realized that its not just numbers but also the content and quality which counts.

We too started our campaign just a week back and were able to garner about 480 votes thanks to our good friends and mostly our colleagues. Quite a few did not get registered as they didn’t realize that they had to click on the verification link.

If this couple had also set about it in the right way, they needn’t have adopted such malpractices.

As Prabha put it very eloquently “Thanks to this contest we have now such a wonderful Travel Blog which wouldn’t have happened otherwise”. Likewise friend! It’s been an exciting journey this far and I’m sure the enthusiasm will continue.

Kuddos to Team TGDC….!!!

Hey Sandeep, now I am really relaxed and happy that only fair play will rle the game of TGDC. Ask me the feeling… What this couple did hasn’t surprised me, though it has gone more than my expectation, but I did expected something like this happening and that is why I was disheartened.

I remember, Sandeep, you and Rishi encouraging me but to be very honest, I am out of job, and all my close friends finished voting for us. It was only my partner, who is working with one of the international BPOs, who was trying to gather as many votes at her workplace as she could. I stopped spamming and bothering those who did not vote for us. Instead, I started focussing on application, blogging and networking and that is why you must have observed me quite active on facebook and TGDC blog these days.

I am happy today, and now, I am beginning to feel that my faith in TGDC will bring good results. I cannot wait till Monday now, but then, I don’t have any option.  Sad!!!

Anyways, I wish all the contestants, Best of Luck!!!

Vinny and Bushra!!!

it is good that TGDC will be taking these cases into account. i guess this is why it is taking 2 days to release the top 100.

is it possible for you guys to send each contestant (or provide for a download from the login page) of the email id’s of people who have voted? so that one can actually drop a thank you email?

Hey Guys,

Firstly great work team TGDC! It restores our faith in this contest - appreciate your work, while rest of us enjoy our weekends, though nervously!

Yeah, we think, in this case the answer is fairly obvious. We have flipped through quite a few profiles in the top-100, and unfortunately, you will probably find many such profiles as you go about analysing the vote patterns. It is unfortunate, but we would encourage the jury to take a tough stance here - eliminate such profiles completely as opposed to giving them zero points only on votes, but still scoring them on other parameters.

Shifting away from “the number of votes” there is another interesting observation. A surprisingly large number of candidates have not followed the route guidelines - i.e. the start and end location, limits on daily distance limits, etc. This will again be a tough decision for the jury, I guess. What do you do with profiles with high number of votes (all in the right spirit), have made fantastic profiles otherwise, but did not follow the stipulated route guidelines?

Thanks a lot again team TGDC.

Aditi and Anupam Mathur

This is definitely a part n parcel of any such online challenge and I don’t think too much of hull-boo is required to be made over this.

As someone just mentioned, and I would also say, friends have definitely given us more than one vote and thats true in general. Everyone is having more than one email ID these days.

But true, a testimonial is a little too much I guess.

Anyways, as Prabha says above, the best thing that happened for us as well is, we completed all our logs and that was a priority thing for us. Another was good, that we spoke to so many of our old friends, that we hadn’t spoken to for ages.

And last, but not the least, we have in our own right made a fantastic drive plan now, studied it in detail that we just need time now to do it, be with TGDC or on our own.

Thanks TGDC team…must you are doing very fine tunes work

unbelievable

takes the cake… i think without thinking they should be banned

kudos to the Team to for tracking this and many more like these

While apply for this competition I knew that there were lots of avenues for racking up fake votes. I also know that there are means for identifying these and weeding them out. The question was whether TGDC would be up to it. Glad to know that they more than are!!