A company inadvertently involved in a major scandal on social news site Reddit has responded in the only way it knows how: by giving away free products.
For nearly two months the company, Vape World, believed it was donating money to a charity run by Reddit’s marijuana community, r/trees. It sent the payments—commissions on products it sold from click-throughs on the subreddit’s sidebar—to the community moderator and founder, Shaun Apple (cinsere).
The only problem? The charity didn’t exist. And those ads also violated Reddit’s terms of service. (Only Reddit, Inc. is allowed to make money through Reddit ads.)
When users of the marijuana forum found out, they were enraged. Apple resigned, but Vape World still owed $1,023 to his non-existent charity. On Monday the company decided to give all that money back to r/trees.
“We wanted to pay it forward” Vape World wrote on Reddit.
The compay is giving away five of its $119 vaporizes for free through an email raffle. (Vaporizes boil cannabis leaves rather than burn them. This creates a “vapor” that’s supposed to be less harmful on the lungs than smoke.)
Those five vaporizers count for a little more than half the money Vape World owes. Smartly, the company plans to donate a big chunk of the remaining funds, $300, to an actual charity, a book drive for school children run by Reddit itself.
It’ll spend the remaining $200 on Reddit ads “to help support [Reddit] since they most likely lost revenue from all of the unsanctioned ads.”
The move has already made the company some fans.
“I don’t even care if I win,” redditor ThurnisHaley wrote. “I just think [it’s] really cool that you guys are doing this.”
Vape World will announce the winners on Feb. 29.
We can only guess how they’ll celebrate.
Image via por chamleo