Does Manual Winner Selection Put Fair Coffee Giveaways in Doubt?

Chagee's Chongqing account is under scrutiny after a single user was picked as a giveaway winner four times in one month. Because staff selected winners manually instead of using the platform's built-in draw tool, netizens suspect manipulation. The winner said frequent participation and luck were behind it, but the explanation did not settle the doubt. Chagee has not responded publicly.

Tea and coffee brands lean on comment-and-repost giveaways to hold fan attention, and many consumers note Chagee runs them often across a main account and regional accounts. With hundreds or thousands of entries per campaign, repeated wins stand out. The case has become a talking point inside coffee culture about how brands should run transparent promotions.

Recently, netizens discovered that in a giveaway held by the official account of Chagee in Chongqing, the same user was selected four times within a single month, sparking widespread skepticism. Because the account did not use the platform's built-in system tool for the giveaway but instead had staff manually select winners, many netizens suspected "black box manipulation." Although the questioned winner came forward to clarify that they simply participated frequently and were lucky, the explanation only deepened public doubt. As of press time, Chagee has not made any response to the matter.

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Nowadays, when promoting new products or running campaigns, major tea beverage brands generally call on fans to leave comments and repost promotional content, promising to draw a certain number of winners from interacting users and give away perks such as free-drink vouchers.

Among these brands, Chagee holds giveaways remarkably frequently. Many consumers report that Chagee not only has an official main account on social platforms but also operates multiple regional accounts, and these accounts plan various types of giveaways almost every month to keep fans' long-term attention on brand updates.

Recently, however, a netizen noticed that in the latest giveaway winner list published by Chagee's Chongqing account on a certain platform, an ID appeared that seemed familiar. After further verification, the netizen found that within a relatively short period, this ID had actually been selected four times in official giveaway campaigns.

You have to understand that each time a brand launches a giveaway, the number of participating accounts often runs into the hundreds or thousands, so for one account to repeatedly emerge as the lucky winner among so many participants is a coincidence that inevitably raises suspicion.

It is worth noting that the social platform itself has a built-in giveaway function, but Chagee's Chongqing account did not use the platform's system draw and instead had staff "manually" select accounts. Precisely because of this, the netizen questioned the fairness of the campaign: "There wasn't even a 30-day gap—was it just pure luck? Or was there inside manipulation?"

After the post was published, it quickly attracted a large crowd of onlookers and discussion. Some believed it was merely a matter of probability, with one extremely lucky customer happening to be selected by the brand multiple times. But some "internet detectives" pointed out after investigation that the account questioned by the original poster had also appeared on the winner list of Chagee's official account.

In addition, some people also discovered that several other lucky winners had likewise been drawn by the official account multiple times, with one person even winning twice within 5 days. Based on these circumstances, more and more people became suspicious, speculating that these accounts with unusually high win rates were actually internal operations staff and that the campaign rewards "were all manipulated through a black box," and they strongly demanded that the official side provide a reasonable explanation.

However, the first to come forward and clarify the matter was the owner of the questioned winning account. The person claimed they were not a Chagee employee and posted multiple comments and check-in photos from their participation in the campaigns, saying they won thanks to an extremely high participation rate and a luck buff, rather than through the opportunistic tricks the public suspected.

Yet this heartfelt explanation failed to convince anyone and instead intensified the suspicions of onlookers: "Only staff would remember the name of every campaign..." "What real customer remembers campaign names? Are you writing an annual report here?" "It feels like protesting too much."

Many users said that although brands hold giveaways to attract fan participation and use the public's reposts to expand promotional reach so more people notice new products, since it is a giveaway and the method used is manually selecting winning accounts, the organizer should maintain fairness and justice, inform participants of the selection criteria, and not prearrange rewards for certain specific accounts.

However, although netizens continued to question the fairness of Chagee's campaigns, as of press time, none of Chagee's official accounts on social media had responded to the matter.

Image source: Xiaohongshu

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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.