Carphone Warehouse's free laptops hunt attracts a crowd

"'Ello, 'ello, 'ello, what's goin' on 'ere then?"

6 September 2007 15:19 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

The news about Carphone Warehouse's planned laptop giveaway on Thursday 6th obviously traveled fast after we ran a news story about it on Pocket-lint.co.uk.

In Southampton, one of the four cities targeted for the giveaway, police got involved in the publicity stunt sparking "angry scenes among those who had turned out for the great laptop hunt" according to the local paper.

Carphone Warehouse had announced they were planning to leave 50 laptops around the city in branded carrier-bags with wings on for consumers to find in a treasure-hunt stylee.

The whole thing was supposed to raise awareness of their current offer that nets customers a free Dell laptop if they sign up to a 2-year broadband deal.

But police said it was a security risk, presumably for the whole, "do not leave bags unattended" kind of concerns, although it's highly doubtful Carphone Warehouse staff would have left the bags unattended.

The report in the paper suggests that instead of leaving the laptops in locations around the city, they were given out by hand.

Apparently "scores of shoppers turned out to search for the prizes" and freebie-lovers said "they had been searching bushes and underneath benches since the early hours of this morning".

Some folk had apparently spent all morning looking for the laptops, not realising that the plan had changed.

Daniel Chamberlain, 20, from Southampton, said: "I am absolutely disgusted. I've been searching all morning only to find that the laptops are not hidden. It's a joke".

Full tags

Hardware, Laptops, Carphone Warehouse, Broadband, AOL, Intel