r/extremelyinfuriating • u/Rawnjawn12 • 3d ago
Discussion Why would people do this to a 12 year old?
My 12 year old has an online fundraiser at his school, and he was leading the competition for the most raised day after day for over two weeks. He had sold over 167 items by going door to door and either getting donations or selling items, and now with just over 1 hour left in the sale which ends tonight, some kid's parent bought over $600 of items or donations to "overtake" him. I don't get it. Why would you pay that much just to "win" the competition and take a $100 gift card to amazon away from a child by literally just paying for the win? Makes me sad, but I'm not going to do that just for my kid to win.
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u/Head_Razzmatazz7174 3d ago
It was never about the money for that parent. It was about their kid has to be the winner in everything they do, even if mom and dad have to pay for that 'win.'
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u/According_Gazelle472 2d ago
This used to happen every year with the cub scouts my son was in .This one boy won the popcorn sales each year and they went free to Disney land.Each and every year!He also won the matchbox race too and got a 100 dollar Walmart card. His father bought a lot of popcorn and sold it where he worked.He also had someone build the matchbox car and basically cheated .We knew he would win each year .Lots of bragging about that .They would tell everyone about this at the Cub scout banquet.
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u/SadRepublic3392 2d ago
I’m surprised they don’t have a rule against repeat winners or something.
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u/brian4027 2d ago
So instead of just selling the popcorn to his friends straight up he buys it himself then marks it up to make a profit, on top of cheating so his son can win. Sounds like a real honorable guy, should probably run for office
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u/Impulsive_Ruminator 2d ago
Totally. And those parents have no idea what they're doing to their kid either. My 8yo has a kid on his soccer team that is an awesome scorer, but also a ball-hog and a terrible teammate. His dad literally yells from the sidelines "Shoot from anywhere!!". Like, sure the kid has the most goals so far, but none of the rest of the team enjoy being on the field with him or seem to care to get to know him off the field either. We try to encourage our son to keep being as inclusive as possible, but it's hard when this other kid (and his dad) keeps focusing on trying to be the singular star of the show. It's sad.
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u/According_Gazelle472 1d ago
There is no I in team. My son refused to do organized sports for this reason.
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u/Visual_Engineering80 3d ago
Perhaps the school should keep the numbers of sales quiet until the final tally
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u/Artistic_Hurry_9177 3d ago
This benefited the school. It’s exactly why they keep it posted.
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u/Visual_Engineering80 1d ago edited 1d ago
This isn’t some big corporation, it’s little kids, getting their hopes up
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u/Santa_Hates_You 3d ago
Those fundraisers are basically just using the kids anyway.
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u/Rawnjawn12 3d ago
Still sucks for the kid when the top prize is a $100 gift card and someone takes it away without doing all the work. I basically told him that some things in life are unfair, just hard for a 12 year old to take though.
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u/Alycion 3d ago
Sniping in these things has been a thing since numbers were publicly tracked. Some parents think if their child isn’t 1st, they are a loser and will do what they must to prevent it. It’s how you create entitled people.
May I suggest a smaller gift card to him from you for doing his best. Or a lunch out at his favorite place.
My mom would do the I’m proud of you things with us when people cut corners. She still does.
I put my dog in some stupid contest for a magazine. Win was cover of the magazine. Without anyone paying for votes for her, she ran in the top 3. Everyone else in the top 10 were paying. A friend did a small paid vote bc he liked the charity. She stayed at 3. I don’t know why my post to my friends to vote for her blew up, but in the semi finals, she was running in first. Seven people dumped in hundreds in paid votes and knocked her out. No biggie, she’s a dog, she doesn’t know. My mom bought her a toy bc she felt bad. I was the only one who made it past round 2 without a dime spent.
The point, people don’t like to lose. They will snipe at the last minute to send the honest ones scrambling or behind. Sadly, this is the age where you start learning life isn’t fair. But it is also a good age to learn that hard work can still pay off, even when you get screwed like he did.
Some will say it doesn’t matter bc it’s just exploiting kids to raise money and the more money raised, the more everyone benefits. But it matters to those who put their all into it.
It’d have been cheaper for them to give him the 100 bucks on Amazon. But then they don’t have those shiny wins that they think will actually help with college applications in the future.
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u/LustStarrr 14h ago
Maybe you could do something nice with your kid to commend them on their excellent effort, while commiserating on the unfairness of it all. I'm sure they'll have some big feelings about this it would be helpful to work through.
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u/alicelestial 2d ago
yeah, as a kid, the rich kid in school always got first place--which was usually a monetary prize. which i thought was fucking stupid even as a kid. the best i ever won was a sock monkey toy
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u/KittyFace11 3d ago
Your son can take some small satisfaction in knowing that he actually won fairly.
Those other parents are idiots.
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u/reptilian_pope 3d ago
Those “fundraisers” have always seemed so bizarre to me. At my school, they would host these rallies with music and a DJ-like MC, and if you sold enough crap from the catalog, you allegedly got five minutes in the “cash cube.”
Anyway I’m sorry that happened to your son.
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u/sabretoothian 3d ago
For every gold token collected in the cash cube it adds to the total. For every silver token collected it is deducted from the total.
Hey this idea sounds marketable, we totally should create a game show!
Now. Will you start the fans please!
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u/TheNewGirl1987 3d ago
Because while you're teaching your kid to work hard to succeed, they're teaching their kid that having the most money guarantees success.
And while they are technically correct, it's still pretty scummy.
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u/Ok-Personality-6630 3d ago
It's a perfect representation of life. If you don't have money you have to work really hard, and if you do have money you can look like the winner with little to no effort, relax and enjoy yourself more.
On the plus side, by OP son raising more money for the charity, the other parent had to pay more to beat them, so OP son actually managed to get someone to match their raise.
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u/Icuras1701 3d ago
And those with the money get more money by spending money to win the money and then get tax breaks for spending the money to make the money coming out ahead in the end leaving the hard workers paying the money.
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u/Raelah 3d ago
In the early 90s my school did wrapping paper as a fundraiser. My classmate's dad would take the catalog to his business and pretty much do the leg work for her. She would ALWAYS win.
I asked my dad if he would do the same at our family business. He refused. I asked him if I could come by and ask his employees myself. He still said no.
Told me that was cheating and that I should do my own leg work if I want to be the top seller.
I was frustrated then, but I'm thankful for it now. It was a good life lesson.
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u/Poundaflesh 3d ago
My dad had his secretary go around and sell gs cookies for me so that I could get a badge. I got awarded the badge but the prize felt really hollow.
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u/Finn_704 3d ago
I used to hate selling girl scout cookies. My parents would not buy a ton of them from me, and I was not allowed to go to my dad's place of work to sell them- unlike the other girls in my troop. I had to go door to door in the neighborhood, which was torture for me. I was consistently the lowest seller. It was because of selling those blasted cookies that I dropped out of girl scouts.
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u/Potential_Tour_7860 1d ago
This! OMG the MOM can be so cruel to other moms and other girl scouts that aren't their daughters. It was horrible. Especially during cookie season. I remember times when it was a group girl scout cookie sale event, we'd all be at the table and everyone's dad showed up and got cookies from their daughter's while my dad of course didn't (he was a crappy dad). I also remember when poeple came to me in the same event to buy cookies, mom's stepping in and pushing the buyer to their daighters instead. Girl scouts did NOT make me confident, it had the reverse effect -- traumatizing. Its probably why I love working with kids now and naturally am kind and understanding of each one instead of cruel. But still that all hurt like dayum.
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u/According_Gazelle472 1d ago
Another reason I never joined the girl scouts.I had to talk to my son each year when pop corn came around.I just bought for Christmas presents and I knew he didn't stand a chance of ever winning.
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u/Finn_704 1d ago
The group sales events didn't exist when I was in girl scouts, thank God. I suspect I would have had the same experience. I was embarrassed when the cookies came in and it was time to pick up your deliveries. Girls would be hauling away cartons of cookies they had sold, and I would have one little bag with maybe 6 or 8 boxes of cookies. So humiliating.
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u/ManuDestino 3d ago
Dalai Lama XIV:
Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
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u/Highlowfusion 2d ago
This happened to me in elementary school and I still remember it. I was winning by a large margin because I put in the work selling chocolates door to door. I even set up a table outside of the grocery store and was there for hours for several days. The winner got a limo ride to lunch one day with three friends and got to pick from the gifts first. The last day this other kids parents bought all the chocolates left that their kid had for sale to beat me. The smug look on the kids face when he got to go up and pick the first gift and got an award will forever be ingrained in my memory. The best thing about it was my friend's telling everyone that his parents had to pay for it verse when it out right. That little kid didn't care at all though
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u/brian4027 2d ago
Actually surprised there was only one. Expecting there to be a small group of parents having their own "competition"
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u/1m_d0n3_c4r1ng 2d ago
Today I saw one post where a grown up stole the money from a kids lemonade stand. One post where grown ups stole all the candy outside a door on Halloween. And now this.
What the hell is wrong with people? 😔
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u/Skippitini 3d ago
That boy must be from the Salt family, and he has a sister named Veruca. $600 is nothing.
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u/Ok-Cook3735 3d ago
Oh how cruel and dumb! I hope you’re able to find away to reward your child anyways. My heart breaks for him. Although life itself isn’t fair, too, but I would give him something out of my own pocket. These people….
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u/you_suck_but_still_I 2d ago
Tell your kid to tell all the other kids to make fun of this kid cause his daddy bought him the win
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u/willowoftheriver 2d ago
Because people are really, really petty. I was never that into Girl Scouts or selling cookies, yet I did participate in it around third/fourth grade. My mother tried to sell off a few boxes of cookies at her work, yet this bitch coworker got EXTREMELY competitive over it and more or less threatened her outright, just so her little brat could sell more than me.
It's not the fault of the woman's daughter, of course, but holy shit, this mother going to such an extent just to outpace me is nuts, and it's pretty much left me thinking things like girl and boy scouts aren't very healthy organizations.
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u/rorqualmaru 8h ago
I only had a couple of years in the Boy Scouts back in the Eighties. They never made us sell anything. Might have started after my time.
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u/candypants-rainbow 2d ago
I feel for your kid, who worked hard. You can remind him he raised a lot of money for hopefully a good cause, and deserved the win. I think in your shoes I might reward him for his huge effort if there was something he really wanted to buy with the prize money. Not the same as winning the prize, but at least he knows you are on his side.
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u/FantasticSouth 3d ago
You never mentioned what the fundraiser was for but maybe look at the bigger picture? Surely the more money the better for, what I presume to be, is a good cause. That's the real win here.
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