What a waste of time. And one church got THREE prizes. How nice for them, but unfair for everyone else participating.

What is a Millionaire Makeover?

That was the money that the Times News was printing in the daily and Sunday papers since August. You were supposed to save it and then attend the auction on Sunday to buy things.

This was the biggest waste of time (months) for both me and my few friends who helped me. Would never do it again! People were leaving 10 min. into the auction. Opening bid was 500,000,000!!
Some people came in with a modest 100,000,000 or less, thinking it would start at 1 or 5 million. Yeah right! Half of the people left 15 min. into it.
I don't blame them. I should have too. St. James (women) were just down the row from us. Great for the church (But to hell with the rest of us!??) I had what I (and many others), thought was plenty to win something yet was never enough. I was Lucky? enough to get something in the end but certainly nothing I cared to win. I'm just lucky to have something. I had less than 225,000,000
and was stuck until my friend (whom I saw leaving-very unhappy), gave me her money or else I would'nt have gotten anything. Was still less than 325,000,000. Heard alot of people say they were giving up their subscriptions. I feel bad for the people who helped me out who thought with 2 or 3 hundred million I'd actually get something good.
Ha. Really!! Thanks alot ETN. Next time..Stick It!...

I collected my millions thinking I could get the windows or the sofa. HA! My husband talked me out of going, said it would be a waste of time, and apparently it was because most of the bidding started with 10 times the money I had saved. I think it was unfair the way this was handled. I mean really, who has the money to waste buying 10 newspapers a day to get all those millions?
I can understand the church having so many, all the parishoners must have saved theirs, but for the little people it is just wrong.

What do you expect? It was an ETN rip-off to get you to buy their crap newspaper. The only thing the ETN is good for is wrapping dead fish and garbage.

I thought I had a lot, also -$188 million - but when I went to pick up my bidder number the woman from the Times told me that schools and churches were saving the money, and I knew then that I shouldn't have bothered going. I went and stayed until the end, because it was like seeing a train wreck - you don't want to look, but you had to. All the "little people" like us really got screwed. And St. James parish will never get another dime from me for their collections or their festival. That was just wrong.

It was very disappointing and also emabarressing! I had several people helping me, and later had to tell them that after all of our work, we didn't have enough to even bid! At the beginning I thought the crowd might get ugly as there was a lot of booing and yelling aimed at the auctioneer. But then people just started giving up and leaving. Also very annoying were the dingbats who couldn't count their money and bid on the car and may other items only to find out they didn't have enough once they went to the cash out tables....those items had to be re auctioned and that took even MORE time...I understand this was the first try at this contest, but nobody really thought it through at the Times or worked out the kinks...I wouldn't participate again only because it was embarrassing to sit there and be a loser!

I am also glad I didn't go. I try to follow rules and I believed if you collected all the money from your paper you were subscribing too, you would have enough to bid on something. How can indivuals compete with churches and schools? I am sorry I wasted my valuable time clipping and looking for the dollars in the paper everyday, I didn't even come close to having enough money to buy a stamp. Very disheartening, and I wouldn't waste my time participating again.

ditto!on all of the above--total waste of time--it was apparent that the auctioneer wanted out as quickly as he could. that is why he started at 500,000 more often than not.

We had 18 people saving their papers for us plus we spent money on postage and envelopes for us and two others and sent for the bigger bills. With a 144,000,000 plus you would have thought we could have had enough for something. But noooooooo. Plus, those that helped us, we returned their kindness by giving them wine, plants or baked goods. If you noticed, about 3/4's of the people there were senior citizens. And the discust, disappointment and anger of the people leaving was something that couldn't be overlooked even by ETN. And to be told that those of us with (this worthless) Millionaire Makeover Money could still bid for things on line was an even bigger let down. The bids on that stuff was still too high. Sell it in the paper, nope. Use it as wallpaper, nah, it'd bring back bad memories of feeling duped. Laminate them and sell them as book marks? Nah, just spending more money and who'd want to bring back the thoughts of what you're out and what a boone it was for the ETN. By the way, have you noticed that nothing has been printed in the paper about after the auction. No letters to the editor or stories of how people were able to acquire the amounts of money they did or about the newspaper boxes being ripped off? That should be the hot topic of the year reported on in the paper.