In July, Reddit users noticed a strange pattern among the recent winners of T-Mobile’s “T-Mobile Tuesdayday” sweepstakes. A disproportionate number of public winners were located in the small township of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.
Through the T-Mobile Tuesday program, the carrier sometimes offers bargaining opportunities that often include tickets, tech gadgets and holidays. Leagues are free to enter, and you do not have to be a T-Mobile customer (although you must be a U.S. resident).
One user notes that since the start of the program in 2018, there have been 24 Chadds Ford winners out of a total of 3,700 residents. In contrast, she counted 14 New York winners out of 8.3 million residents, 25 Los Angeles winners out of 4 million residents, and 22 Chicago winners out of 2.7 million residents. In one May sweepstakes, which raised nearly $ 100 to 100 gift cards, a total of 15 “winners” from the city of Pennsylvania appeared.
“I need to open a PO box in Chadds Ford,” one user noted.
The mystery is no more. T-Mobile has confirmed CNBC that “the high number of Chadds Ford winners was related to bots submitting multiple entries.”
The publication notes that it appears to the bots that ‘a relatively small amount’ of actual prize money has been affected.
Yet the incident is a funny reminder of how easily scammers can play great gifts. By CNBC, an amateur hacker could easily deploy bots to fill in the fields in T-Mobile’s entry form, using the scammer’s own Chadds Ford address. “Tools that help carry out this type of activity are widely available.”
T-Mobile told CNBC it has introduced additional security measures to prevent the problem from recurring.
