MasterCard Business Blunder! Priceless Toronto MBNA Promotion Brochure Sign Up Link Not Found Error

Hello, again!

In case you forgot, my name is Karina and I’m the blogger behind the Knitting and Purling blog.

I swear, it exists! I know it might not seem like that’s the case for anyone who has visited the site in the last 4 months (I checked, my last blog post was from July! Boy, time sure flies…). But I’ve actually been quite the busy little bee working behind the scenes, trying to do a complete and comprehensive overhaul of the entire blog site architecture. I know, I know… no excuses. So let me start off by apologizing once again for my extended hiatus from blogging (seems to happen a lot, doesn’t it?)!

Anyhoo… I’m excited to announce that the new blog changes are almost ready to roll out and go live! But that’s not why I’ve chosen today to return back to the blogosphere.

So what is this catalyst that brought me back to blogging again, you ask?

Well, I received a promotional brochure in the mail today regarding my MBNA MasterCard. Apparently, they’ve launched a new program called Priceless Toronto.

Now the actual MasterCard Priceless Toronto program itself is not the reason why I’m writing this blog. The reason I’m posting today has to do with the physical promotional pamphlet that I had received in the mail, sent from MBNA Canada.

In it, there’s an exclusive MBNA Mastercard invitation link for signing up to the Priceless Toronto program. The problem? This URL goes to not found error page. And it’s is listed multiple times throughout the brochure. Highlighted in red, too! So there really is no way anyone can miss it.

So there ya have it! Big credit card corporations like MasterCard make mistakes like you and me. However, I’m pretty sure when we make mistakes, our errors aren’t broadcasted to tens or even hundreds of thousands of people in the mail. Whoopsy! An accidental mistake, I’m sure. But still, it was an amusing part of my day to find it.

Now here’s proof that the URL is indeed an error (an HTTP 404 Not Found error, to be exact… that’s tech speak for MasterCard made a boo boo). When you go to the URL, it takes you to this error page:

Now, for those of you who are true tech geeks like myself, this might tickle your fancy. Here’s a confirmation on REDbot (according to their About page, the website is “a robot that checks HTTP resources to see how they’ll behave, pointing out common problems and suggesting improvements“) that the sign up URL listed on the MBNA MasterCard Priceless Toronto promotional brochure is indeed leading to an HTTP 404 not found error (Because robots don’t lie!! Just ask SEOmoz’s Rogerbot). So if anytime in the future after writing this post, the folks at MasterCard wake up and realize their mistake? Well it’s all documented here for ya!

OK, so I realize by writing this blog post, I have essentially revealed just how much of an Internet geek I really am. Because, yes. It’s stuff like this that only true computer nerds like myself would stumble upon and notice. They don’t call me ridiculously thorough at work for nothing!

Did you also find humor from reading this blog post? Then I truly need to become your friend. Please, I beg you to contact me. Cheers.

Yours truly,
Karina
(a.k.a. just another SEO geek girl looking for some nerd love)