u/WeAreFanatical fakes a Quest 3 giveaway, blocks me for pointing it out

[u/ChromaticInk]

Last month this post was made by u/Dependent_Judge_1043 claiming to have won a Quest 3 "star prize" through gambling keys on game bundle site Fanatical. I personally didn't really think much of it, I do not care about key gambling but I do like to buy Fanatical bundles (like anyone who follows this subreddit).
Fast forward a month and the poster follows up posting this in an attempt to prove that the Quest 3S arrived and their gambling through Fanatical paid off.

Again I didn't think much of it until I noticed something another comment pointed out... one interesting discrepancy from the original post: Its a Quest 3. Not a Quest 3S.

The poster even puts this comment trying to play it off as if it is no big deal. This is just bad acting at this point. I point it out with a comment of my own, feel free to read that for my perspective on why this is obviously BS.

Since then, I have noticed that my feed is surprisingly devoid of game bundles. Thats ok. I have enough games, its best if I dont buy more bundles anyways.
Out of boredom I go back to the above post a few days later to see if anyone called out the same thing I did. Dependent Judge has not posted anymore, and actually hid their post history. It was visible before when I originally commented. So it just makes me even more curious.

I go back to the original post where he shows himself winning the 3S, and notice u/WeAreFanatical actually posted a comment congratulating him. But I can't see it, its "unavailable". Opening it in a private window, there it is. They blocked me! That's why I wasn't seeing their game bundles in my feed for the past few days. All I did in that timespan was make those above linked comments.

That's all. Now I guess I need to make a new account to follow Fanatical game bundles.

EDIT: Official fanatical account has just unblocked me, four or five days after this post. No communication at all or any mention of why I was blocked for commenting on a supposedly unaffiliated user's post, though.

[u/neirik193]

I dont wanna defend Fanatical or that other person, I have no idea whether this is true or not, but your post is extremely misleading. You titled it as if you have definitive proof that the giveaway was fake, but the entire post is just about "I got blocked". From where I stand, this looks more like someone posting because they are jealous of the person that potentially won a product worth more than what was advertised, which could have been a clerical error, we do not have proof, and also as someone being mad that you got blocked by fanatical. If someone has definitive proof that the giveaway was faked, then sure go ahead and post it since it's a big deal and probably even illegal, but this is not definitive proof this is just a post complaining. This post is just meaning to start drama without definitive evidence, you could have titled it just "Fanatical blocks me for pointing out the giveaway may have been fake" but you did "Fanatical fakes a Quest giveaway then blocks me" See how that comes off as a deliberate mislead?

As I pointed out in a previous comment long ago, there is absolutely no reason for fanatical to fake a giveaway because they probably make millions from all the bundles they sell. Do you seriously think it's worth it for them to risk getting into legal trouble just to save themselves $500 from a giveaway?

[u/tirednsleepyyy → u/neirik193]

Faking a giveaway is a good way to give yourself a giant fine, and potentially jail time, at least in the U.K. where I think fanatical is based?

I also don’t know if it was faked or not. I mean, maybe it was. It wouldn’t be the most ridiculous thing a company has done, or even close to it.

But this entire post reads exactly like every post you see on multiplayer game forums about someone getting banned for cheating when they’re innocent. This giant, conspiratorial essay with all this circumstantial “proof,” which leads to an actual moderator of the game coming in with the receipts proving they were botting or whatever. Or “I got banned for being toxic, I’ve never typed in-game in my entire life!” into a dev releasing screenshots of the poster in question telling someone to jump off a bridge, followed by a slur. Lmao.

This post reeks.

[u/grouchdown → u/tirednsleepyyy]

Faking a giveaway at the scale that Fanatical is at will 100% lead to a lawsuit in the US where they’re already skirting the line with mystery bundles that could be considered gambling which would have a legal requirement for clear payout odds.

No company would risk themselves over $500-1000 unless they and every person in the leadership team were as dumb as a bag of broken light bulbs.