Australian carrier lets customers win prizes with unused data
Virgin's promo highlights how your data normally goes down the drain.
Unless you roll it over, the unused mobile data you paid so dearly for is lost in time, like tears in ... rain. For a limited time, however, Virgin Mobile customers in Australia can transform those dead digits into phones, drones and other swag. To be sure, the "data auction" is a publicity stunt that mostly benefits Virgin, since there's but a single prize each day over the month-long promo. In addition, you have to bid all your remaining data, so you can only win once.
However, some of the items are pretty decent, including a Samsung Galaxy S7, DJI Phantom 3 drone and the grand prize, a $40,000 all-expenses paid trip to a private island in Fiji. If nothing else, the auction draws attention to the fact that while some subscribers do abuse unlimited data, most use a fraction of their paid allotment — to your carrier's benefit, of course.