Group buying website admits cheating

Group-buying website Gaopeng.com has acknowledged cheating on an iPhone 4 drawing through the Sina micro blog and Tencent micro blog on May 10, Beijing Business Today reported on Thursday.

The website said in a statement Wednesday that it fired one vice president in charge of the drawings, according to the paper.

Gaopeng.com is the Chinese branch of the US group-buying website Groupon.com, which just entered the country in March and partly relied on lucky drawings to promote itself. The website said on May 4 that people following Gaopeng.com on micro blogs and forwarding its posts will have a chance to win a free white iPhone 4 through a lucky draw held on May 10.

More than 110,000 people participated, and the winner was found to be an employee of Gaopeng.com.

The website apologized on Wednesday and gave away 20 more iPhones as compensation to the micro-bloggers.

Gaopeng.com has arranged 19 lucky drawings since March, without publishing its method, the paper said.