To not going to vote for a stranger's children in a baby and toddler competition

[mothergoutte]

I have just received an email addressed to "My Lovely Fellow Students" asking to vote for the sender's children in an online baby and toddler competition with a prize of £1000 to go towards a family holiday (a costly one apparently).

Well... no.

Yes we are doing the same training, yes we have the same tutor, but in different groups. We don't actually know each other, we haven't even exchanged emails or anything. Well, maybe we have met on a study day, we wouldn't necessarily have talked together, and with an address email it's not always easy to know who the owner of the address is. I certainly have no idea of who is sending this.

Presumably it wouldn't cost me much to cast my vote, just to receive spam email forever after... But I don't know... It would be on a website like Mumsnet, a post which nobody's asked me to read and I'd feel like doing a kind deed, but it was on my personal email address, shared with other students for training purposes. I find it quite intrusive really.

What do you think? Am I being unreasonable?

Yanbu. I never even vote for friend's children when they plaster it all over FB. Why would I pay about £1.50 to phone a number and vote?

No YANBU. Sounds ghastly. Presumably this competition is based on a photo/appearance of children. Sorry, but my judgey pants would be firmly hoiked.

Its like a worse version of all the emails I get at work from people I have never met (big office) giving links to their sponsorshop for walking the great wall of china/ desert marathons /trips to africa etc etc.

YANBU. They shouldn't have used the email addresses like that. Maybe if they were running a marathon for charity but not for votes for a baby pageant.

I wouldn't do it. I would probably email back and ask that she (he) take you off their spam list and just use the email for professional (school related issues)

I am a teacher and parents have asked to vote for their kids. I always say no!

I'd email back and say thank you for sending that. It was great to see all the lovely children, and you voted for the most gorgeous kid there-which wasn't theirs.

I hate popularity contests that are pretending to be judging something else though, so it makes me stroppy when people do that.

YANBU.

I entered DS when he was a baby into our local paper competition. He was my PFB and oh so cute. No one actually bothers to buy the paper, cut out the tokens and send them in except the parents.

The winner was a girl whose sister had won 2 years previously. They had a huge family. Nothing to actually do with who was the best looking baby. God I can't believe I actually did it myself. Although now I feel guilty as I haven't and won't be entering DD even though I did her brother.